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 26
... language of men ' is the language not merely of common speech but of masculinity ; to diverge from that language and sing as a poet may mean to sing , like a castrato , as a woman or in feminine tones . Castration which in exchange for ...
... language of men ' is the language not merely of common speech but of masculinity ; to diverge from that language and sing as a poet may mean to sing , like a castrato , as a woman or in feminine tones . Castration which in exchange for ...
Page 28
... language so formulaic that it defends against any authentic emotional response . Like Coleridge , Wordsworth makes a dis- tinction between literary myth and personal experience , but in doing so he remain- ders the nightingale ...
... language so formulaic that it defends against any authentic emotional response . Like Coleridge , Wordsworth makes a dis- tinction between literary myth and personal experience , but in doing so he remain- ders the nightingale ...
Page 161
... language of Pygmalion , a language devoid of any real acknowledgement of the woman's self , Jules's protestation carries no real chal- lenge for its speaker . But here the sentiment is not a man's idealising but a woman's attempt to ...
... language of Pygmalion , a language devoid of any real acknowledgement of the woman's self , Jules's protestation carries no real chal- lenge for its speaker . But here the sentiment is not a man's idealising but a woman's attempt to ...
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