Milton

Book 1

Milton’s Satan is an interesting character. For one, he is treated like a protagonist for the first part of the work. Because of this literary approach, he is given some positive characteristics which one would not attribute to evil normally. For example, he is a master orator and also quite a skilled military leader. Even though he and his legions have been defeated, he somehow rallies them to stand again.

One character trait I thought was interesting was that despite the quasi-positive light shed on Satan, he is still controlled by God, which is an aspect we have seen in previous works as well (Donne especially): “so stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay Chained on the burning Lake, nor ever thence Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs.”

Book 9

The Eve in Milton’s Book 9 contrasts the various versions of a 17th Century woman's identity in a few ways – Milton gives her a lot more power and character than a lot of male authors we’ve read tend to give women. For one, she has a lot more power over her husband than we’ve seen women to have in our previous readings – she is impetuous, opinionated, and forceful. We can see this from her persistence to work separately from Adam. Although he tries several times to convince her otherwise, she insists that they will achieve more if they are apart, and they will not be tempted by evil even though they are not together. Eventually she gets her way with Adam, and it doesn’t seem like he’s particularly upset about it. This seems unrealistic for a woman in Milton’s time – recalling Phillips’ poem A Married State, it seems like women didn’t have a lot of say in their relationships: “A married state affords but little ease/ The best of husbands are so hard to please.” Secondly, she possesses considerable power of reasoning, which we see employed when she is deciding whether or not to eat the fruit: “Great are thy Virtues, doubtless, best of Fruits. Though kept from Man, and worthy to be admired…Here grows the Cure of all, this Fruit Divine, Fair to the Eye, inviting to the Taste, Of virtue to make wise: what hinders then To reach, and feed at once both Body and Mind?” This aspect of women is rarely explored in the literature we have read previously; for the most part women are admired and written about for their beauty and charm. Third, she is selfishly in love with her husband: As she says, “Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe: So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.” Recalling Cavendish’s view of her husband and Phillips’ view of married life, it’s interesting how attached Eve is to Adam. It is also interesting that she is able to convince Adam so easily to taste the fruit; in fact, he more or less talks himself into it, citing the same reasons she does for sharing it with him: “if Death Consort with thee, Death is to me as Life; So forcible within my heart I feel The Bond of Nature draw me to my own.”

Lanyer

A lot of what we read of Aemilia Lanyer’s work was decidedly feminist, but I don’t know that I agree with her tactics. In fact, I found her brand of defence of women quite curious. She puts men down quite a bit, while contrasting them with shining instances of famous women, but the examples she uses are so exaggerated it’s hard to take her seriously. An example of this can be found in “To the Virtuous Reader” – “As was cruel Cesarus by the discreet counsel of noble Deborah, judge and prophetess of Israel: and resolution of Jael wide of Heber the Kenite: wicked Haman, by the divine prayers and prudent proceedings of beautiful Hester…” At the same time, Lanyer constantly apologizes for being a woman, and for the defects she must certainly have because of it. Underneath her hearty defense and protest it seems like she partially believes that women are weak and defective. In “To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty,” she asks the Queen to read her work “though it defective be,” describing herself as having a “weak distempered brain and feeble spirits [and] unworthy of grace.” She also asks all defects in woman to be excused, implying that there are defects that need to be apologized for.

This hypocritical attitude is further seen in “To the Virtuous Reader.” Lanyer says “in danger to be condemned by the words of their own mouths, fall into so great an error, as to speak unadvisedly against the rest of their sex; which if it be true, I am persuaded they can show their own imperfection in nothing more.” However, I argue that this is pretty much exactly what she does.  In “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women,” Lanyer blames Adam for taking the apple from Eve, but she does so because she says Eve was weak and Adam was strong, and therefore the onus was on Adam: “what weakness offered, strength might have refused.”  She says that he has more to be sorry for (“the greater was his shame”), being “lord of all,” while Eve is less important somehow. Then she goes on to say that Adam lacked discretion. I found this back and forth defense hard to get on board with. I felt that it contrasts heavily with Cavendish, whose voice and opinion apologize for nothing. She even goes as far as to compare her imaginary conquests with those of men in the real world, whereas I feel Lanyer would have apologized ten times over before even getting to the point. But that might just be my reading.

Apart from theme and content, which I wasn’t a big fan of, I liked Lanyer’s writing style. Her use of rhyme and regular meter is easy to read. The gorgeous imagery she uses in some places reminded me of the style of Herrick and Marvell: in particular, in “The Description of Cookham” Lanyer’s lines “The trees with leaves, with fruits, with flowers clad, Embraced each other, seeming to be glad, Turning themselves to beauteous canopies, To shade the bright sun from your brighter eyes; The crystal streams with silver spangles graced, While by the glorious sun they were embraced; The little birds in chirping notes did sing, To entertain both you and that sweet spring. “

Cavendish and Phillips

What interested me about this week’s readings were the differences and similarities between the writing of men like Donne, Herrick, Marvell, etc., and that of female writers such as Phillips and Cavendish. Maybe it’s because I knew they were women so I was looking for it, but I found the differences and similarities in their writings very thought-provoking, especially because modern day poetry doesn’t generally display such distinctions.

The most obvious difference was theme. Donne, Herrick, and Marvell objectify women quite frequently, and cast them as objects of sexual or romantic love. As you would guess, Phillips and Cavendish do not. For example, In “To His Coy Mistress,” Marvell coaxes a woman not to be reserved, and to take advantage of her youth and “sport” while she can. Herrick and Donne also write a great deal about women: Herrick’s Upon the Loss of His Mistresses, The Vine, Delight in Disorder, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, Elegy 19 and The Flea have women as the prime focus. In contrast, Phillips writes delicate poems such as Friendship’s Mystery, To My Dearest Lucasia and To Mrs. M. A. At Parting, which extoll and celebrate friendships. Cavendish writes of things like her life in A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life, and The Blazing World, wherein she creates a new, parallel world.

I thought the Blazing World was interesting for a lot of reasons. It was very different from everything we’ve read so far this semester, and also one of the first things we’ve read by a woman. One thing I noticed was that in the Blazing World, the position of women in society was much more important. The empress unequivocally rules – “No sooner was the lady brought before the emperor, but he conceived her to be some goddess, and offered to worship her…and gave her absolute power to rule and govern all that world as she pleased.” The idea that the duchess should rule an entire world is acceptable as well.  I feel that the fact that Cavendish had to go as far as to “create” another world in order to be able to rule it shows how impossible it was at the time The Blazing World was written. At the end she compares her creation of the Blazing World and the Philosophical world with the conquests of Caesar etc., saying that her conquests are in some ways superior: “[the] creation was more easily and suddenly effected, than the conquests of the two famous monarchs of the world, Alexander and Caesar: neither have I made such disturbances, and caused so many dissolutions of particulars, otherwise named deaths, as they did; for I have destroyed but some few men.”

The Blazing World also brings up some interesting points about religion at the time. There’s not much religion in The Blazing World; in fact Cavendish goes as far as to disdain all religions and pointedly decides to create a new, unified one in her Blazing World. “I have made my Blazing World, a peaceable world, allowing it but one religion, one language, and one government.” This shows the lack of involvement of women in religion during this time period.

As far as style goes, Phillips is very flowery, which contracts with Donne and Marvell to an extent, but not so much Herrick. Cavendish was not so much so, in fact some of her poetry was very circuitous, reminiscent of Carew. So it would probably be a very sexist conclusion to say there is a definite difference between the style of male and female writing during this time period.

Andrew Marvell

This week, I was struck again by how easily the poetry of Andrew Marvell reads. His poems fit the layman’s definition of “poetry” in their regular rhyme scheme and meter (for example, “O let our voice his praise exalt, Till it arrive at heaven’s vault,” Bermudas). They are witty like Donne’s poems, but I found them much more accessible, which to be honest is something I really appreciate in poetry.

What I found extremely interesting about Marvell's poetry is summed up in a line in the Norton Anthology’s introduction of Marvell: “Many of Marvell’s poems explore the human condition in terms of fundamental dichotomies that resist resolution.” It goes on to describe how all of the poems assigned for this week’s reading display these fundamental dichotomies.

“The Dialogue Between Soul and Body” is a religious/philosophical poem, and it talks about the conflict between body and soul (obviously), or as the Norton Anthology puts it, between “nature and grace…or poetic creation and sacrifice.” The form of the poem itself reflects this conflict: it is a conversation, almost, that goes back and forth between the body and the soul. The soul complains that it is paradoxically imprisoned by the body: “With bolts of bones, that fettered stands In feet, and manacled in hands. Here blinded with an eye, and there Deaf with the drumming of an ear; A soul hung up, as ‘twere, in chains Of nerved, and arteries, and veins; Tortured, besides each other part, In a vain head and double heart.” The body responds, saying “O who shall me deliver whole From bonds of this tyrannic soul?...[which] Has made me live to let me die.” Thus the soul and the body are entrapped by each other, and the poem ends without a clear sense of victory on either side.

Marvell also explores the dichotomies that exist in love: sexual and platonic love, idealized courtship and the unrelenting nature of time. In “To His Coy Mistress,” Marvell first described this idealized courtship: “Had we but world enough, and time…An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest: An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart.” He then turns to time: “But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” What Marvell is saying is that although he would love to draw out the courtship of his mistress, time forces him to speed it up, and he encourages her to “sport while [they] may.” In “The Definition of Love,” Marvell described Love itself as a paradox, a contradiction. He says that Love, which is supposed to be a beautiful and positive thing, “was begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility.” Although there may be “two perfect loves,” Fate does not allow them to be united, driving “iron wedges” between them.

The poem “The Garden” shows the opposition between nature and man. The very first stanza sets up this theme: Marvell says that men toil in vain, while nature reproves them: “all flowers and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose!” He says that he has foolishly looked among men for Quiet and Innocence, when they are in fact “among the plants,” if on earth at all. He extols the beauty found only in nature, comparing it to Eden: “Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walked without a mate.”

After reading Marvell’s poetry, I began to look for dichotomies in other works, and found that they are not difficult to locate. Shakespeare’s Tempest has clear conflicts between civilization (Prospero, Miranda) and the lack thereof (Caliban). King Lear shows tension between the old and the young. Both plays also have the broader theme of good versus evil. John Donne, like Marvell, explores the conflicts between platonic and sexual love, and romantic love and love of God.