Divided Labors: Work, Nature, and the Utopian Impulse in John Milton's Paradise Lost.
Utopia has often been defined as an imaginary, this-worldly, rational ideal distinct from older, mythic, prepolitical forms of social ideality such as Paradise or the Golden Age. Milton's Paradise Lost complicates this opposition and departs from exegetical tradition, introducing temporality, materi...
| Published in: | Studies in Philology Vol. 116; no. 3; pp. 506 - 539 |
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| Format: | Poetry Review |
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University of North Carolina Press
Summer2019
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=137798177&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 137798177 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00393738 SPL jtl: Studies in Philology issn: 00393738 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2019 vid: 116 iid: 3 pid: 2027 pub: University of North Carolina Press artinfo: ui: 137798177 10.1353/sip.2019.0020 ppf: 506 ppct: 33 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 319KB tig: atl: Divided Labors: Work, Nature, and the Utopian Impulse in John Milton's Paradise Lost. aug: au: Welburn, Jude affil: Wilfrid Laurier University su: Paradise Lost (Poem : Milton) Milton, John, 1608-1674 Social structure Metabolism Philosophy of time sug: subj: Paradise Lost (Poem : Milton) Milton, John, 1608-1674 Social structure Metabolism Philosophy of time ab: Utopia has often been defined as an imaginary, this-worldly, rational ideal distinct from older, mythic, prepolitical forms of social ideality such as Paradise or the Golden Age. Milton's Paradise Lost complicates this opposition and departs from exegetical tradition, introducing temporality, materiality, and social organization into the Genesis story. The chaotic vitality of nature in Milton's paradise makes Adam and Eve's labor meaningful and necessary, and the preservation of the Edenic state is predicated upon the control of excess and a rational division of work and play. Milton's paradise is not, therefore, simply a state of nature, a presocial or prepolitical condition; it is the seed-form of a larger social order that already contains within itself the problem of the metabolism of nature and society. If paradise and utopia form an opposition, this opposition is internal to Paradise Lost. pubtype: Review doctype: Poetry Review src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Studies in Philology is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Studies in Philology holder: University of North Carolina Press dt: @attributes: year: 2019 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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