Women (Re)Writing Milton

Mandy Green is Associate Professor of English at Durham University where she teaches courses on Milton, Shakespeare, and Renaissance Literature. Her work on classical presences in English literature has appeared in a number of journals and edited volumes; she has also published a monograph on Milton’s Ovidian Eve (2nd edn, 2016). Sharihan Al-Akhras is a journalist who has worked in a number of media outlets and social networking services in London, including but not limited to: BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera English, and Twitter. Her PhD thesis examined the presence of Judeo-Arabic mythology in Paradise Lost. Her interests include Early Modern Literature, Middle-Eastern mythology, the demonic, Arab female authorship, East–West relations, and (social) media.

"Scholarly attention to the transnational reception of Milton's poetry and prose began in earnest at the International Milton Symposium at the University of Exeter in 2015, and is now offered to a broad readership in this lively collection of wide-ranging, thoughtful, and accessible essays. With the publication of this volume, England can no longer claim exclusive ownership of Milton." Mary Nyquist, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto"This is no ordinary collection on Milton and women. The editors have cast their net well beyond the usual scholarly circles and academic subjects. The result is an exciting volume that extends into contemporary issues such as race and gender fluidity (Milton’s Spirits ‘when they please, can either sex assume, or both’). It also looks at fresh ways into Milton’s female readers, and how their responses are expressed creatively in imaginative writing and visual art and performance. The Milton that emerges from this volume is not the canonical figure of Anglo-American academic study, but a global figure whose poetry reverberates through many cultures." Gordon Campbell, Emeritus Professor and Fellow in Renaissance Studies at the University of Leicester."Contributors to this present, ground-breaking volume do not speak with one voice. Rather, like the female authors and artists whom they explore, they evince a variety of stances. Bringing new female figures, new subjects, and new approaches to the study of Milton, they foreground appropriation and gender in fresh and provocative ways that warrant further pursuit." Laura Knoppers, Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and editor of Milton Studies"Women (Re)Writing Milton will revitalize the way we think about Milton and gender. The essays in the collection offer a brilliant array of perspectives on the ways in which women writers and artists through centuries and across cultures have re-imagined Milton’s works. Invariably engaging, often unexpected in their subject matter, these essays herald the beginning of a more generous and inclusive approach to Milton’s reception history." Karen L Edwards, Professor of English, University of Exeter

• Foreword Laura L. KnoppersIntroduction Mandy Green and Sharihan Al-AkhrasPart IEarly Responses by English Women Writers: Poetry and ProseChapter 1 Lucy Hutchinson’s Irrepressible Eve Allan DrewChapter 2 ‘Soaring in the high region of her fancies’: The Female Poet and the Cosmic Voyage’ Thomas R. TyrrellChapter 3 ‘Two Great Sexes Animate the World’: Looking Past ‘Milton’s Bogey’ in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’ Mandy GreenPart IIGlobal Perspectives: Biographies, Translations, Novels and the InternetII.1 Nineteenth and twentieth-century responsesChapter 4 The Return of William Wells Brown: A Heroic Black Miltonist in Josephine Brown’s Miltonic Biography of Her Father’ Reginald A. WilburnChapter 5 Emilia Pardo Bazán and Milton’s Spanish Afterlife Angelica DuranChapter 6 I Am Not ‘Masculine’ I Am Weak: Ágnes Nemes Nagy’s Translation of Sonnet 23’ Miklós PétiII.2 Contemporary responsesChapter 7 Milton’s Domestic Life and the Tempering of Female Ambition in Kim Wilkins’ Angel of Ruin Larisa Kocic-ZámbóChapter 8 From Hell to Paradise: Miltonic Presences in Beatriz Bracher’s Anatomia do Paraíso Renata Meints AdailChapter 9 Milton and Arab Female Authorship in the Age of Social Media Sharihan Al-AkhrasPart IIIMilton through the Female GazeIII.1 Women Re-reading Milton: Education and TheoryChapter 10 ‘Beyond Milton’s Daughters: Dorothy Dury, Lady Ranelagh, and the Question of Female Education Shannon MillerChapter 11 ‘Queer Opening’: Eve’s Readers and Writers Stephanie SpotoChapter 12 ‘Paradise within’: A Post-Jungian Revisiting of the Feminine in Milton’s Paradise Lost’ Roula Maria DibIII.2 Milton Visualised: Digital Media, Art, and PerformanceChapter 13 Gendered Reflections on an All-Day Reading of Paradise Lost Jameela Lares and Kayla M. Schreiber Chapter 14 Other Eyes: Women Artists Rewriting Paradise Lost Wendy Furman-AdamsChapter 15 Women Directing Milton: Feminist Stagings of Miltonic Seduction Farah Karim-Cooper