Although Milton's contempt for women has been accepted since Samuel Johnson's famous life of the poet, critics continue to debate whether Milton's writings are anti- or pro-feminine, a problem further complicated by his advocacy of "divorce on demand" for men. This book re-evaluates these claims by analyzing his major poems, his four divorce tracts, and the responses of female readers ranging from George Eliot and Virginia Woolf to lesser known artists and revolutionaries.
Although Milton's contempt for women has been accepted since Samuel Johnson's famous life of the poet, critics continue to debate whether Milton's wri...
In this reexamination of the allegorical dimensions of "Paradise Lost," Catherine Martin presents Milton's poem as a prophecy foretelling the end of one culture and its replacement by another. She argues that rather than merely extending the allegorical tradition as defined by Augustine, Dante, and Spenser, Milton has written a meta-allegory that stages a confrontation with an allegorical formalism that is either dead or no longer philosophically viable. By both critiquing and recasting the traditional form, Milton describes the transition to a new epoch that promises the possibility of human...
In this reexamination of the allegorical dimensions of "Paradise Lost," Catherine Martin presents Milton's poem as a prophecy foretelling the end of o...
Although Milton's contempt for women has been accepted since Samuel Johnson's famous life of the poet, critics continue to debate whether Milton's writings are anti- or pro-feminine, a problem further complicated by his advocacy of "divorce on demand" for men. This book re-evaluates these claims by analyzing his major poems, his four divorce tracts, and the responses of female readers ranging from George Eliot and Virginia Woolf to lesser known artists and revolutionaries.
Although Milton's contempt for women has been accepted since Samuel Johnson's famous life of the poet, critics continue to debate whether Milton's wri...
