Feminist Milton

Elizabeth Attaway, London preacher and Theologian, 1645–1646

“…54 Joseph Wittreich, though, finds it improbable that Milton would side with "shallow Edwards" against Attaway, arguing that she certainly knew the divorce tracts, but that readers should not take Edward's word "that she misread and abused them". 55 John Leonard likewise observes, pace Henry, that Milton repeatedly associates licence with the Presbyterians, especially in Areopagitica (1644), which presses the paradox that licensing produces licentiousness. For Leonard, the thrust of Areopagitica is to embrace people like Attaway "as 'faithful labourers', 'prophets', 'sages', and 'worthies'", and he concludes that "The sects might not have been the audience that Milton expected or wanted when he wrote The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, but he did not spurn their support".…”

Milton, Melancholy and the Sublime in the “Female” Gothic from Radclijfe to Le Fanu

“…Rather she holds up a higher rhetoric as beyond even his comprehension; since he .... has not ear, nor soul to apprehend The sublime notion, and high mystery, That must be uttered to unfold the sage And serious doctrine of Virginity. (784- 7) The Lady sets herself up as arbitress of sublime knowledge in opposition to Comus, and, later in the speech invokes the witness of the earth, and the animal creation to her words. And the effects on Comus are those of the sublime orator described by the classical writer, Longinus: the words overcome the hearer, as if they were thunderbolts:…”

“…Both were admirers of Milton, and Wollstonecraft's celebrated denunciation of Milton's Eve in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is balanced by positive evaluation of his first woman in The Female Reader (1789) where extracts from Book 5 of Paradise Lost accompany approval of the mental qualities of Eve. [33] William Godwin's political anarchism causes him to view Satan as possessing a real grievance in his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) but there is no sense, in his discussion, of real sublimity, since Godwin's Satan is the rational man, not a demi-urge. [34] Wollstonecraft might turn from Milton's ur-couple as "animals sporting" to Hell "for sublimer subjects", but her model of the sublime is still located in ruination and loss.…”

Looking forward

“…How might we learn from those past global changes, challenges, successes, and failures? Future global changes may not repeat past global changes, but perhaps they rhyme with them (Wittreich 1987;Gould 1988…”