scholarly journals The Poetics of Scriptural Quotation in the Divorce Tracts

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Peter Auger
Keyword(s):  
Divorce Tracts

Milton and Transcendent Authorship

Making Milton ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Stephen B. Dobranski
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Divorce Tracts ◽  
Young Writer ◽  
Material Form

This chapter examines Milton’s notion and practice of authorship over the first half of his career. Beginning with Sonnet 8 and some of Milton’s other early poems—‘On Shakespeare’, Mansus, ‘The Passion’, and Lycidas—the chapter shows how as a young writer he embraced an idealistic notion of poetry’s preservative power but always in terms of his texts’ material transmission. Two crucial experiences helped to develop Milton’s thinking about his authorship: the outrage prompted by his divorce tracts underscored his works’ vulnerability, while the printing of his Poems in 1645 drove home the need for collaboration if his writing were to survive. All of Milton’s early works illustrate how his concept of authorship anticipates the monist philosophy that will animate Paradise Lost. He understood early on that his writing was both letter and spirit: his words needed an appropriate material form if they were to have a lasting spiritual life.

VIII. The Influence of Milton's Divorce Tracts on Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem

PMLA ◽  
1924 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-178
Author(s):  
Martin A. Larson
Keyword(s):  
Marital Relationship ◽  
Moral Standard ◽  
Restoration Drama ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
Single Instance ◽  
Divorce Tracts ◽  
Considerable Discussion

That the discussion of the problem of divorce in The Beaux' Stratagem, is unique in Restoration Drama, both in its tone and in the arguments employed, has long been recognized by students of Farquhar. Strauss finds in the play a growing thoughtfulness regarding manners and institutions, and a perceptible alteration of moral tone. He is inclined to question, however, whether we are to conclude from the single instance presented, that Farquhar actually meant to countenance divorce by mutual consent. William Archer, in a considerable discussion of the divorce phenomenon, is inclined to treat the matter more seriously. He finds in the comedy Farquhar's firm belief that a breach of the marriage vow is by no means the only immorality possible in the marital relationship. “The scenes are,” he says, “in fact, a plea for what Farquhar regarded, rightly or wrongly, as a more rational law of divorce … He admitted a moral standard, and subjected social conventions, not to mere cynical persiflage, but to the criticism of reason.”To Professor Ward the divorce motive is equally puzzling. “Some of the incidents are dubious, including one at the close—a separation by mutual consent, which throws a glaring light on the view taken by the author and his age on the sanctity of the marriage tie.”

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