Thus early, thus alone; her heav'nly form
Angelic, but more soft, and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture or least action overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:
That space the Evil One abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remained
Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed,
Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;
But the hot hell that always in him burns,
though in mid-Heav'n, soon ended his delight,
And tortures him now more, the more he sees
Of pleasure not for him ordained: then soon
Fierce hate he recollects . . .
This is a shocking, dynamic passage containing language that, as we have been discussing in class, is tearing the text apart, and presenting Satan with an intimacy that the Bible never reaches.
The passage begins by describing Eve's beauty overpowering the evil intent of Satan. Milton could have described this happening in many different ways, but he chose to focus on the psyche of Satan. Milto says that the "Evil One" (a name suggesting no room for anything but evil) becoming abstracted from the very thing which we usually believe to be the essence of Satan's identity - evil. I'm also curious about how Milton does not say that Satan becomes abstracted from evil, but that Satan becomes abstracted from his own evil. Again, Satan is understandable and humanized - he has personal demons riding him as well! In this passage, Satan is not portrayed as Evil Itself, but he appears to be an unlucky, miserable, childish conduit for evil. If Eve's effect on Satan is able to abstract him from his own evil, could he not be redeemable? Portraying Satan this way does make Milton's God seem like a harsh one.
Next, Milton describes this abstraction as making Satan "stupidly good." It seems for the moment that seeing Eve has restored his own innocence. The word choice is also especially interestingly here. If Satan for a moment is separated from his evil by being stupefied, and by being made stupid, is intellect an evil thing? Is the best, most pure, most un-fallen state of humanity one of being "stupidly good?" Yet this is the thing that Eve also questions through out the piece. She wants to know more and to act more than just live according to the virtue of obedience to God.
The last lines of this passage remind me of the later scene, after Eve has eaten the fruit and when she is contemplating what to tell Adam. In the same way that Satan returns to evil contemplating the things that he cannot have (pleasure not for him ordained), Eve reveals her own evil because she cannot bear the thought of Adam partaking in pleasures that she cannot.
Overview of Topic
Hello all, and welcome to my blog. I’ve really enjoyed being able to study Renaissance texts this semester, and I’ve particularly enjoyed being able to focus on gender roles within the texts we have read. The first insight I want to share with you is how, by taking this course and reflecting on the texts, I have begun to feel connected to a time period that I used to feel some disdain towards. I had an impression about the early modern era that it was full of witch hunts and oppressed women and vicious hierarchy. Although it did have all these things, what I’ve come to understand is that I come from this tradition.
Modern feminism and western individualism has come from the people who lived in the early modern era and their ancestors. And if you look closely at the period, indicators are everywhere that presage modern feminism, capitalism, secularism, and individualism. I’ve also found a new literary hero – the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. My interest in her voice had to do with how self-assertive she was. She died for her self-assertion, but did not suffer defeat. I’ve chosen to primarily explore self-assertion in the early modern period on this blog.
As I mentioned before, I held an incorrect preconception about women of this era – that they accepted the boundaries given to them and had not yet begun to question. This is far from the truth. As pamphlet literature became accessible to all, misogynistic ideas reached more and more people. In response to this, women began to speak out and publish about themselves in a way that had never been done before. But, women still needed to be careful in their outspokenness. The Jacobean period was a conservative one, and King James was not known for being sympathetic to a shift from the traditional role of women. This led to women putting disclaimers and apologies within the texts they published. Furthermore, most of the texts published were in defense of the status quo of women. Most of the pamphlets did not argue for a radical shift I gender role, but rather for a halt to the demonization of women and praise for their role in society.
Women also felt more comfortable publishing their more radical views about gender if they justified in in the common cause of godly endeavor. Invoking divine right to further push the boundaries of what they could do (specifically as jobs or hobbies) was harder for others to condemn. Although, defending women in the name of religion is a tricky thing to do. Religious bias for female inferiority was perhaps the greatest hurdle to overcome for feminism in the Renaissance.
There were many pamphlets published by both men and women which embraced women as the inherently inferior sex, oftentimes citing numerous biblical passages. Despite difficulties in getting their voices heard, women found a middle ground and created room for self-expression amidst a rigid patriarchy by tempering their radicalism with perhaps feigned feminine modesty, and invoking divine right. Self-assertive women of the period were not modern feminists, but as stated previously, they helped build that foundation.
Pamphlets that attacked women had the habit of moving from the specific to the general. That is, one pamphlet might be discussing the story about a woman who murdered her husband, but would quickly move on to the nasty, murderous tendencies of all women. This made it easy to dehumanize the entire female sex. Other literature reversed this tendency. John Webster’s, The Duchess of Malfi, provides an intimate look into the life of a woman killed for going after simple human desires. The audience can’t help but feel sympathy with the woman and question the own rigid systems within their society that kept women from achieving individual identity.
I invite you to explore the texts and websites I have listed here. I urge you to pay special attention to the primary texts – as they’ll allow you to get to know the brave, intelligent women that began the fight for the freedoms women enjoy today.
Works Cited
Anger, Jane. “Jane Anger, her Protection for Women.” c. 1589 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 171-88. Print.
Bartels, Emily C. "Strategies Of Submission: Desdemona, The Duchess, And The Assertion Of Desire." Studies In English Literature (Rice) 36.2 (1996): 417. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Felch, Susan M. "Noble Gentlewomen Famous For Their Learning": The London Circle Of Anne Vaughan Lock." Anq 16.2 (2003): 14-19. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Hannay, Margaret P. "Constructing A City Of Ladies." Shakespeare Studies 25.(1997): 77. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Henderson, Katherine U., and Barbara F. McManus. Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. Print.
Swetnam, Joseph. “The Arraignment of Lewd, idle, forward, and unconstant women or the vanity of them, choose you whether.” c. 1615 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 189-216. Print.
Taylor, John. “A Juniper Lecture, With the description of all sorts of women, good and bad: From the modest to the maddest, from the most Civil to the scold Rampant, their praise and dispraise compendiously related.” c. 1639 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 290-304. Print.
Woods, Susanne. "Shifting Centers And Self Assertions: The Study Of Early Modern Women." Shakespeare Studies 25.(1997): 67.Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
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