The Intelligible Flame
Paradisal Eros And Old Testament Divorce In Milton’S Prose
In his five divorce tracts, written after his own marriage failed in the first month, and before his wife's return from a three-year estrangement, Milton gives central importance to the dynamic and dialectic nature of the response to Genesis. Milton's new idea is this: the legislature of England, regenerated by its struggles against Royalism, should restore the wise and pious law of Deuteronomy that allowed the husband, if he is genuinely convinced of his wife's ‘uncleanness’, to declare a divorce and dismiss her from his household. Uncleanness must be interpreted in a strikingly new way, however. The first section of this chapter looks at exegesis and the vision of perfect marriage. The second section looks at the concepts of love, sexuality, and hatred. The third section examines female usurpation and the act of bondage.
Keywords: Old Testament, Paradisal Eros, Milton, perfect marriage, love, sexuality, hatred, female usurpation, bondage
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