Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:59:39 -0500
From: Cristina Jo Thaut <ct84153-AT-ltec.net>
Subject: Re: Milton and Colonialism


At 01:36 AM 4/16/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Dear Cristi Thaut,
>
>More than a year ago I wrote a paper called "The Poetics and Politics of
>Discourses and Counter-Discourses in _Paradise Lost_ Book XII: A
>Postcolonial Reading." This paper, partly contesting Fredric Jameson's
>"Religion and Ideology: A Political Reading of _Paradise Lost_," looks at
>"the moments and spaces of complicities and resistances" produced within
>the dominant epic space itself--a space which, as Jameson argues, also
>exemplifies "ideological closures" and underwrites an "official ideology."
>In that paper I also argue that Eve is doubly colonized in the
>"post-lapsarian space." I'm, therefore, interested in your project and I'd
>be happy to know more about it.

Can I get a hold of this article?  Is it published?  If not, would you be
willing to email it to me?

>I'm wondering if you would be interested in looking at J. Martin Evans's
>_Milton's Imperial Epic: Paradise Lost and the Discourse of Colonialism_
>(Ithaca:  Cornell UP, 1996). Thanks.

I am reading Evans right now.  He poses an interesting problem in his text.
He begins by saying that he is going to discuss the colonial roles of Satan,
Raphael, Michael, and Adam.  At one point he mentions that he will discuss
Adam and Eve after the fall, but in his overall argument he leaves Eve out.
This omission is a glaring one.

As I said before in my first post, I plan to look at Eve as first being
emptied by the European gaze, then reconstructed as a womb after the fall.
She no longer tends to (any) garden, Adam is told by Michael that he will
have to toil; Eve is eliminated from the one activity which preoccupied her
before the fall.

As a larger discussion I want to explore Milton's idea of subordination.  He
time and again disparages any kind of hierarchy, except God's (I guess God
is the only one who can get it right).  One of the consequences of the fall
is that "men will rule over men", creating this very sacreligious
hierarchy/subordination; this, of course, reflects Milton's own political
point of view.  I think Milton sees the inequality in Adam and Eve, and
Eve's subordination as a result of the fall, an unavoidable evil.  This
makes Eve a sympathetic character for Milton as well as the reader.  Evans
does discuss Milton's awareness of American colonialism during this time; it
is arguable that Milton saw colonialism as an unfortunate result of the fall
as well; i.e. man's desire to rule over men, a very Satanic desire.  My own
language in discussing this also eliminates Eve; I would agree--she is
doubly colonized, silenced and forgotten, and given only one reather painful
duty.  Thanks for your response, Cristi

>Azfar Hussain
>Department of English
>Washington State University
>Pullman, WA 99164-5020
>Phones: 509-332-0399 (H)
>        509-335-4081 (W)
>E-mail: azfar-AT-wsu.edu
>
>
>
>
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