XPost: rec.arts.sf.written   
   From: djheydt@kithrup.com   
      
   In article ,   
   Dr Nancy's Sweetie   wrote:   
   >I wrote:   
   >> _Paradise Lost_ is an amazing piece of work (sort of has to be to still   
   >> be popular centuries later), and I recommend it.  (I know someone who   
   >> only read _Moby Dick_ because Captain Picard had read it, and was quite   
   >> glad to have done so.  I never thought to ask if he'd read _Paradise   
   >> Lost_; if not that would seem to settle the "Kirk vs Picard" question.)   
   >   
   >"Dorothy J Heydt " replied:   
   >> It is a great work.  On the other hand, if you're female you may not   
   >> be able to finish it.  I couldn't.  Milton wants his females to be   
   >> brainless, will-less nitwits who regard their husbands as gods and   
   >> never do *anything* except what their husbands tell them to.   
   >   
   >This is an interesting criticism, given Milton's treatise _The Doctrine   
   >and Discipline of Divorce_%, in which he argued that incompability of a   
   >husband and wife should be sufficient to dissolve a marriage (a view   
   >which got him in trouble at the time).   
      
   Well, as I recall, he married (in middle age) a young woman from   
   a fun-loving Cavalier family who put up with him about two weeks   
   before running home.  So one can understand his attitude about   
   divorce.   
      
   >One hates to be contrary, but a guy who thinks that "a meet and happy   
   >conversation is the chiefest and the noblest end of mariage", and who   
   >feels that a woman should be able to divorce her husband, doesn't mesh   
   >well with the image of him as someone who thinks women should just be   
   >mindless nitwits.   
      
   But ... Eve *is* a mindless nitwit.   
      
     It's tough to have a meet and happy conversation   
   >with a mindless nitwit.  (This is presumably why Lord Tennyson argued   
   >that women would be more companionable wives were they educated, a view   
   >that Dorothy Sayers objected to in _Are Women Human?_ (p 20-21).  She   
   >was on board with the education, but not with the justification for it.)   
   >   
   >I don't disagree that Milton presents gender-specific roles in _Paradise   
   >Lost_, and his characters see the clearly-defined roles as an asset.  I   
   >can see where that might be grating; but it was written in the 1600s, so   
   >that was the world he lived in.  If you're going to take things too   
   >personally, you'll lose an awful lot of classical literature.   
      
   This is quite true.   
      
   But every person has his/her breaking point, and mine was when   
   Eve, instead of sitting down and *listening to what Raphael had   
   to say about the dangers threatening her and Adam in Paradise,*,   
   said to herself "Oh, this is men's business, I'll go cook lunch."   
      
   FX: camel's back breaks   
      
   --   
   Dorothy J. Heydt   
   Vallejo, California   
   djheydt at hotmail dot com   
   Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.   
   Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)