Love Against Substitution: Politics and Theology in the Conjugal Narrative of Paradise Lost
| dc.contributor.author | Song, Eric B., 1979- | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-11-04T16:55:29Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2014-11-04T16:55:29Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2014-11-01 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In Paradise Lost, John Milton transforms the stuff of epic poetry: conjugal love is described as more heroic than valor or conquest. Influential literary histories have cited Milton's poem as a cultural innovation that anticipates the rise of the English novel--a genre that comes to center upon domesticity and married life. This talk returns to this familiar narrative to argue that we've missed something hidden in plain sight: what it means for marriage to have been defined as the love for an absolutely irreplaceable object. This definition might be so familiar now that it seems merely commonsensical despite the widespread fact of remarriage after death or divorce. Yet in seventeenth-century England, this talk argues, the literary trend of defining marriage around a unique love took hold for particular reasons. Namely, this definition put emotional pressure on the very idea that humans are replaceable and that marriage is the proper way to produce legitimate substitutes. This resistance to substitution tests not only the practical dimensions of hereditary monarchy--in which heirs should replace monarchs seamlessly upon death--but also on the religious underpinnings of this political system. John Milton had, earlier in his life and career, taken part in the revolution that temporarily did away with monarchy in England. This talk shows how Paradise Lost advances Milton's political and religious thought through its conjugal narrative; this epic experiment would, in turn, help to shape how future generations have come to think of the basic meaning of marriage and of love. | en_US |
| dc.description.note | Part of Garnet Homecoming and Family Weekend 2014. | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Swarthmore College. Dept. of English Literature | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10066/15013 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Swarthmore College | |
| dc.title | Love Against Substitution: Politics and Theology in the Conjugal Narrative of Paradise Lost | en_US |
| dc.type.dcmi | Sound |