The Female Sublime from Milton to Swinburne: Bearing BlindnessThis innovative study of vision, gender and poetry traces Milton's mark on Shelley, Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne to show how the lyric male poet achieves vision at the cost of symbolic blindness and feminisation. Drawing together a wide range of concerns including the use of myth, the gender of the sublime, the lyric fragment, and the relation of pain to creativity, this book is a major re-evaluation of the male poet and the making of the English poetic tradition.The female sublime from Milton to Swinburne examines the feminisation of the post-Miltonic male poet, not through cultural history, but through a series of mythic or classical figures which include Philomela, Orpheus and Sappho. It recovers a disfiguring sublime imagined as an aggressive female force which feminises the male poet in an act that simultaneously deprives and energises him. This book will be required reading for anyone with a serious interest in the English poetic tradition and Victorian poetry. |
From inside the book
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Page 20
... become feminine the more independence it gains for itself . I would argue that , if Milton's powers do shade into each other , it is with a pre- dominance of female characterisation . The Spirit's power of insemination becomes less of a ...
... become feminine the more independence it gains for itself . I would argue that , if Milton's powers do shade into each other , it is with a pre- dominance of female characterisation . The Spirit's power of insemination becomes less of a ...
Page 66
... becomes a reproduction not only of the ' event ' but of a scene which can be constantly repeated through reading . Although that scene was evanescent , the sonnet monumentalises it for posterity , like the subject of a classical ...
... becomes a reproduction not only of the ' event ' but of a scene which can be constantly repeated through reading . Although that scene was evanescent , the sonnet monumentalises it for posterity , like the subject of a classical ...
Page 70
... becomes the ground for poetry : poetry made by another poet . While the Poet who embodied poetry ' A fragile lute on whose harmonious strings the breath of Heaven did wander ' ( 667 ) - is now himself silent , he becomes the substance ...
... becomes the ground for poetry : poetry made by another poet . While the Poet who embodied poetry ' A fragile lute on whose harmonious strings the breath of Heaven did wander ' ( 667 ) - is now himself silent , he becomes the substance ...
Contents
Orpheus Sappho and the feminised | 11 |
Milton and Shelley | 47 |
from Sappho to Satan | 88 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
The Female Sublime from Milton to Swinburne: Bearing Blindness Catherine Maxwell Limited preview - 2001 |
The Female Sublime from Milton to Swinburne: Bearing Blindness Catherine Maxwell No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
appears associated beauty becomes bird blindness body Browning Browning's called castration chapter claim classical critics dark death describes desire disfiguration dream early effect Elizabeth Barrett Browning emotions English Essays experience expression eyes face female sublime feminine figure follow fragment gender head hermaphrodite ideal identified identity imagination influence inspiration John language later less Letters light lines literary London look loss lyric male male poet mark masculine means Medusa Milton muse myth nature nightingale notes original Orpheus pain painting Paradise Lost passion poem poet poet's poetic poetry present readers references reflection relation represents Romantic Sappho scene seems seen sense sexual Shelley Shelley's shows sight song sonnet speaker spirit Studies suggests Swinburne Swinburne's symbolic takes Tennyson things thought tion Tiresias tradition turns University Press verse Victorian vision voice woman women writing York