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Notes
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Works Cited
1
In their poetry and prose, Donne, Jonson, Milton, Lanyer, and Cavendish all complicate
notions of gender by means of reproductive language.
2
In her book Renaissance Utopias and the Problem of History, Marina Leslie suggests
that, in the female-ruled Blazing-world, Cavendish’s treatment of reproduction as a
magical occurrence separate from the female womb demonstrates that “she clearly has
no interest in connecting the political body to maternity and female nurture” (141).
3
Marina Leslie. “Gender, Genre and the Utopian Body in Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing
World”
4
In her essay “A Womb of His Own: Male Renaissance Poets in the Female Body,”
Maus argues that mental reproduction is “analogous but superior” (91) to physical
reproduction, and that male poets, including Milton and Donne, evoke the image of
the womb because it is secure and private, yet externally accessible.
5
In the essay “’Monstrous Altercations and Barking Questions’: The Prodigious Births
of Scylla, Mris Rump and Milton’s Sin,” Sauer argues that Sin’s public role contributes
to her monstrosity and that Sin’s body signifies the confusion of “tongues, identities
and gender roles” (184) that occurs post-Fall. Likewise, Murphy argues, in “Paradise
Lost and the Politics of ‘Begetting’,” that Sin’s reproduction is associated with the
public sphere; however, she focuses on how Eve, who is associated with the private,
domestic sphere, contrasts with Sin, as her birth allows a place for family and structure
in the post-lapsarian world (44). In his essay, The Temptation of Milton’s Eve: ‘Words,
impreng’d / With Reason,” William Riggs argues that domestic distress is a fallen
limitation as seen in the temptation of Eve. Lastly, in his essay “Gender and Conduct
in Paradise Lost,” Schoenfeldt argues that Eve’s “capacity to generate social behavior...
challenges the masculine hierarchy based on precedence and physiology that the work
habitually reaffirms” (319).
6
While Louis Schwartz book, Milton and Maternal Mortality, largely demonstrates
Milton’s sympathy towards Eve’s curse on account of his biographical experience with
death in childbirth, he also explores Satan and Adam’s roles as birthers, which are
particularly interesting to my discussion, and the female role as begetter of Christ.
7
Interestingly, Sin refers to Satan as Father with a capital F, a title usually reserved for
God himself. This highlights that Satan is sole creator of Sin, and that the creation is
separate from God’s mediation.
8
Marina Leslie. “Gender, Genre and the Utopian Body in Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing
Cavendish, Margaret. “The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World.”
Paper Bodies. Ed. Sylvia Bowerbank and Sara Mendelson. Ontario, Canada:
Broadview Press, Ltd, 2000. 151-251. Print.
Leslie, Marina. “Gender, Genre and the Utopian Body in Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing
World.” Utopian Studies 7.1 (1996): 6-24. JSTOR. Web. 24 November 2011.
--- Renaissance Utopias and the Problem of History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1998. Print.
Maus, Katherine Eisaman. “A Womb of His Own: Male Renaissance Poets in the
Female Body.” Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England. Ed. Douglas A.
Brooks. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005. 89-107. Print.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. Gordon Teskey. NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.
Print.
Murphy, Erin. “Paradise Lost and the Politics of ‘Begetting’.” Milton Quarterly 45.1
(2011): 25-49. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 November 2011.
Riggs, William W. G. “The Temptation of Milton’s Eve: ‘Words, impreng’d / With
Reason’.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 94.3 (1995): 365-92.
MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6, November 2011.
Sauer, Elizabeth. “’Monstrous Altercations and Barking Questions’: The Prodigious
Births of Scylla, Mris. Rump and Milton’s Sin.” The Ben Jonson Journal 2.2
(1995): 171-98. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 November 2011.
Schoenfeldt, Michael C. “Gender and Conduct in Paradise Lost.” Sexuality and Gender
in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, Texts, Images. Ed. James Grantham Turner.
Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1993. 310- 338. Print.
Schwartz, Louis. Milton and Maternal Mortality. NY: Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.
Wittig, Monique. “One is Not Born a Woman.” The Straight Mind and Other Essays.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. 9-20. Print.
World.”
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