This volume of essays reconfigures the reception history of Milton and his works by bringing to the fore women reading, writing, and rewriting Milton, bringing together in conversation a range of voices from diverse historical, cultural, religious, and social contexts across the globe and through the centuries. The book encompasses a rich range of different literary genres, artistic media, and academic disciplines and draws on the research of established Milton scholars and new Miltonists. Like the female authors and artists whom they explore, the contributors take up a variety of standpoints. As well as revisiting the work of established figures, the volume brings new female creative artists, new subjects, and new approaches to the study of Milton.
Foreword Laura L. Knoppers
Introduction Mandy Green and Sharihan Al-Akhras
Part I
Early Responses by English Women Writers: Poetry and Prose
Chapter 1 Lucy Hutchinson’s Irrepressible Eve Allan Drew
Chapter 2 ‘Soaring in the high region of her fancies’: The Female Poet and the
Cosmic Voyage’ Thomas R. Tyrrell
Chapter 3 ‘Two Great Sexes Animate the World’: Looking Past ‘Milton’s Bogey’ in
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’ Mandy Green
Part II
Global Perspectives: Biographies, Translations, Novels and the Internet
II.1 Nineteenth and twentieth-century responses
Chapter 4 The Return of William Wells Brown: A Heroic Black Miltonist in Josephine
Brown’s Miltonic Biography of Her Father’ Reginald A. Wilburn
Chapter 5 Emilia Pardo Bazán and Milton’s Spanish Afterlife Angelica Duran
Chapter 6 I Am Not ‘Masculine’ I Am Weak: Ágnes Nemes Nagy’s Translation of
Sonnet 23’ Miklós Péti
II.2 Contemporary responses
Chapter 7 Milton’s Domestic Life and the Tempering of Female Ambition in Kim
Wilkins’ Angel of Ruin Larisa Kocic-Zámbó
Chapter 8 From Hell to Paradise: Miltonic Presences in Beatriz Bracher’s
Anatomia do Paraíso Renata Meints Adail
Chapter 9 Milton and Arab Female Authorship in the Age of Social Media
Sharihan Al-Akhras
Part III
Milton through the Female Gaze
III.1 Women Re-reading Milton: Education and Theory
Chapter 10 ‘Beyond Milton’s Daughters: Dorothy Dury, Lady Ranelagh, and the
Question of Female Education Shannon Miller
Chapter 11 ‘Queer Opening’: Eve’s Readers and Writers Stephanie Spoto
Chapter 12 ‘Paradise within’: A Post-Jungian Revisiting of the Feminine in
Milton’s Paradise Lost’ Roula Maria Dib
III.2 Milton Visualised: Digital Media, Art, and Performance
Chapter 13 Gendered Reflections on an All-Day Reading of Paradise Lost
Jameela Lares and Kayla M. Schreiber
Chapter 14 Other Eyes: Women Artists Rewriting Paradise Lost
Wendy Furman-Adams
Chapter 15 Women Directing Milton: Feminist Stagings of Miltonic Seduction
Farah Karim-Cooper
Biography
Mandy Green is Associate Professor of English at Durham University where she teaches courses on Milton, Shakespeare, and Renaissance Literature. Her work on classical presences in English literature has appeared in a number of journals and edited volumes; she has also published a monograph on Milton’s Ovidian Eve (2nd edn, 2016).
Sharihan Al-Akhras is a journalist who has worked in a number of media outlets and social networking services in London, including but not limited to: BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera English, and Twitter. Her PhD thesis examined the presence of Judeo-Arabic mythology in Paradise Lost. Her interests include Early Modern Literature, Middle-Eastern mythology, the demonic, Arab female authorship, East–West relations, and (social) media.
"Scholarly attention to the transnational reception of Milton's poetry and prose began in earnest at the International Milton Symposium at the University of Exeter in 2015, and is now offered to a broad readership in this lively collection of wide-ranging, thoughtful, and accessible essays. With the publication of this volume, England can no longer claim exclusive ownership of Milton." Mary Nyquist, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto
"This is no ordinary collection on Milton and women. The editors have cast their net well beyond the usual scholarly circles and academic subjects. The result is an exciting volume that extends into contemporary issues such as race and gender fluidity (Milton’s Spirits ‘when they please, can either sex assume, or both’). It also looks at fresh ways into Milton’s female readers, and how their responses are expressed creatively in imaginative writing and visual art and performance. The Milton that emerges from this volume is not the canonical figure of Anglo-American academic study, but a global figure whose poetry reverberates through many cultures." Gordon Campbell, Emeritus Professor and Fellow in Renaissance Studies at the University of Leicester.
"Contributors to this present, ground-breaking volume do not speak with one voice. Rather, like the female authors and artists whom they explore, they evince a variety of stances. Bringing new female figures, new subjects, and new approaches to the study of Milton, they foreground appropriation and gender in fresh and provocative ways that warrant further pursuit." Laura Knoppers, Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and editor of Milton Studies
"Women (Re)Writing Milton will revitalize the way we think about Milton and gender. The essays in the collection offer a brilliant array of perspectives on the ways in which women writers and artists through centuries and across cultures have re-imagined Milton’s works. Invariably engaging, often unexpected in their subject matter, these essays herald the beginning of a more generous and inclusive approach to Milton’s reception history." Karen L Edwards, Professor of English, University of Exeter
