Paradise Lost and The Blazing World: Knowledge of Knowledge that is Bes

Paradise Lost and The Blazing World: Knowledge of Knowledge that is Best Left Unknown John Milton set out to write Paradise Lost in order to â€Å"justify the ways of God to men† (1.26). To achieve this grand goal, Milton relies on his reader’s capability to discover a degree of personal revelation within the text. Many scholars have noted Milton’s reliance on personal discovery throughout Paradise Lost; Stanley Eugene Fish points out that discovery operates in Paradise Lost in a way that â€Å"is analogous to that of the Mosaic Law† because it invokes a level of interaction with the reader that is able to â€Å"bring us to the righteousness of Christ† (526-7). This idea of discovery differs from genre because the reader’s personal experiences within the text frame the guiding principles for the reader’s self-education. In The Blazing Word, Margaret Cavendish utilizes discovery as a means to instruct her reader in a way that closely resembles that used by Milton in Paradise Lost. In addition, Cavendish makes use of one of its main themes: â€Å"Be lowly wise† (Milton 8.173). Although the idea that Cavendish and Milton would both emphasize personal discovery in their texts may not be all that earth-shattering, it seems rather implausible that Margaret Cavendish, a woman who was a â€Å"stanch opponent to Puritan values,† (Ankers 306) as well as an devoted royalist, could have possessed a conception of the nature of knowledge that was virtually indistinguishable from the one held by John Milton, a devout Puritan and Cromwell supporter. Furthermore, our current conceptions of these two writers—Margaret Cavendish as a pioneering feminist writer and John Milton as a conservative Christian icon—seem to further undermine any notion that these two autho... ...ary Criticism 9.1,2 (2000): 301-15. Cavendish, Margaret. The Blazing World. The Blazing World & Other Writings. Ed. Kate Lilley. London: Penguin, 1994. 117-202. Fish, Stanely Eugene. â€Å"Discovery as Form in Paradise Lost.† Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and SourcesCriticism. 2nd ed. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: Nortan, 1993. 526-36. Lilley, Kate. â€Å"Introduction†. The Blazing World & Other Writings.Ed. Kate Lilley. London: Penguin, 1994. ix-xxxii. Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Sources Criticism. 2nd ed. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: Nortan, 1993. 1-304. Wood, Caroline Tanya. â€Å"The Fall and Rise of Absoluteism: Margaret Cavendish’s Manipulation of Masque Conventions in ‘The Claspe: Fantasmes Masque’and The Blazing World.† In-Between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism 9.1,2 (2000): 287-99.