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nineteenth, and much of the twentieth centuries, Milton’s misogynistic streak was usually considered an eccentricity, not a malign preoccupation at the center of his being. At the dawn of the feminist period, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in their groundbreaking
The Madwoman in the Attic
, maintained that Milton’s patriarchal version of Genesis had from the beginning intimidated and oppressed female writers. He taught that a divine Father and Son had created everything, that Sin was a cursed mother, that Eve was supposed to be obedient to Adam (“He for God only, she for God in him”) but instead was corrupted by the devil (Gilbert 368–82; later in Gilbert and Gubar 187–212). Philip Gallagher objected immediately (Gallagher and Gilbert 319–22) and later expanded his views in the fervently argued
Milton, the Bible, and Misogyny
(1990).
Joseph Wittreich’s
Feminist Milton
(1987) showed that, Gilbert and Gubar to the contrary, many women down through the years had been empowered by Milton’s portrait of Eve. Early commentators on
Paradise Lost
were well aware that a passage such as Adam’s enumeration of marital woes to come at 10.896–908 was forced and gratuitous, since Adam “could not very naturally be supposed at that time to foresee so very circumstantially the inconvenience attending our
straight conjunction with this sex
, as he expresses it” (Thyer, cited in Todd 3.321). A few passages on a pet peeve were not too high a price to pay for great literature. Most poets had bees in their bonnets. Shakespeare himself never had a good word for dogs and cats. But feminists feared that Milton, whether consciously or not, was the agent of patriarchy or logo-centrism or bourgeois individualism—whatever its name, a large conspiracy of overlapping ideological commitments hostile to women and progressive civilization alike.
The main positions in feminist Milton studies are essentially the same as those adopted in Shakespeare studies, and no doubt in other literary disciplines. Some interpreters found that Milton’s poetry, if read sympathetically, yields meanings surprisingly favorable to women (McColley 1983; Woods). Others of this persuasion explored the possibility that Milton was not primarily threatened by women but in fact identified with them in profound ways (Kerrigan 1983, 184–86, 188–89,and 1991; S. Davies; Turner 65–71, 142–48; Lieb 83–113). Some, by contrast, agreed with Gilbert and Gubar that Milton is irredeemably an obstruction and will have to be cleared away (Froula). There were also those evenhanded souls contending that Milton is pretty much all right so far as he goes, but does not go far enough. James Turner in
One Flesh
found Milton’s Eden erotically liberating; yet the poem has “two quite different models of the politics of love: one is drawn from the experience of being in love with an equal, … the other from the hierarchical arrangement of the universe, and the craving for male supremacy” (285). Mary Nyquist conceded that Milton seemed progressive in championing companionate marriage based on conversational partnership but warned that a woman content with such by-products of individualism would be settling for too little. The “blear illusion” (
Masque
155) of these bourgeois goods prevents women from appreciating the higher truths to their left (99–100, 115–24).
This is still a young tradition. Up to now it has no doubt been too caught up in the barren chore of ideological grading. But the arguments have begun.
R EFERENCES AND A BBREVIATIONS
Most of the many editions, books, and articles cited in the introduction and notes can be found, alphabetized by author, in the Works Cited bibliography at the end of this volume. Where an author’s surname is given without a date, it means that only one of this author’s works has been cited in the edition. Where a name is coupled with a date, it means that at least two works by this author have been cited in the
The Madwoman in the Attic
, maintained that Milton’s patriarchal version of Genesis had from the beginning intimidated and oppressed female writers. He taught that a divine Father and Son had created everything, that Sin was a cursed mother, that Eve was supposed to be obedient to Adam (“He for God only, she for God in him”) but instead was corrupted by the devil (Gilbert 368–82; later in Gilbert and Gubar 187–212). Philip Gallagher objected immediately (Gallagher and Gilbert 319–22) and later expanded his views in the fervently argued
Milton, the Bible, and Misogyny
(1990).
Joseph Wittreich’s
Feminist Milton
(1987) showed that, Gilbert and Gubar to the contrary, many women down through the years had been empowered by Milton’s portrait of Eve. Early commentators on
Paradise Lost
were well aware that a passage such as Adam’s enumeration of marital woes to come at 10.896–908 was forced and gratuitous, since Adam “could not very naturally be supposed at that time to foresee so very circumstantially the inconvenience attending our
straight conjunction with this sex
, as he expresses it” (Thyer, cited in Todd 3.321). A few passages on a pet peeve were not too high a price to pay for great literature. Most poets had bees in their bonnets. Shakespeare himself never had a good word for dogs and cats. But feminists feared that Milton, whether consciously or not, was the agent of patriarchy or logo-centrism or bourgeois individualism—whatever its name, a large conspiracy of overlapping ideological commitments hostile to women and progressive civilization alike.
The main positions in feminist Milton studies are essentially the same as those adopted in Shakespeare studies, and no doubt in other literary disciplines. Some interpreters found that Milton’s poetry, if read sympathetically, yields meanings surprisingly favorable to women (McColley 1983; Woods). Others of this persuasion explored the possibility that Milton was not primarily threatened by women but in fact identified with them in profound ways (Kerrigan 1983, 184–86, 188–89,and 1991; S. Davies; Turner 65–71, 142–48; Lieb 83–113). Some, by contrast, agreed with Gilbert and Gubar that Milton is irredeemably an obstruction and will have to be cleared away (Froula). There were also those evenhanded souls contending that Milton is pretty much all right so far as he goes, but does not go far enough. James Turner in
One Flesh
found Milton’s Eden erotically liberating; yet the poem has “two quite different models of the politics of love: one is drawn from the experience of being in love with an equal, … the other from the hierarchical arrangement of the universe, and the craving for male supremacy” (285). Mary Nyquist conceded that Milton seemed progressive in championing companionate marriage based on conversational partnership but warned that a woman content with such by-products of individualism would be settling for too little. The “blear illusion” (
Masque
155) of these bourgeois goods prevents women from appreciating the higher truths to their left (99–100, 115–24).
This is still a young tradition. Up to now it has no doubt been too caught up in the barren chore of ideological grading. But the arguments have begun.
R EFERENCES AND A BBREVIATIONS
Most of the many editions, books, and articles cited in the introduction and notes can be found, alphabetized by author, in the Works Cited bibliography at the end of this volume. Where an author’s surname is given without a date, it means that only one of this author’s works has been cited in the edition. Where a name is coupled with a date, it means that at least two works by this author have been cited in the
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