Milton and Maternal Mortality

This book examines the impact of maternal mortality on Milton's life and work, and provides important readings of his major poems.

Childbirth in seventeenth-century England was associated with fear, suffering and death, and this melancholy preoccupation found its most articulate expression in John Milton's poetry. This landmark study examines the impact of maternal mortality on Milton's life and work, and provides important readings of his major poems, including Paradise Lost.All too often, childbirth in early modern England was associated with fear, suffering and death, and this melancholy preoccupation weighed heavily on the seventeenth-century mind. This landmark study examines John Milton's life and work, uncovering evidence of the poet's engagement with maternal mortality and the dilemmas it presented. Drawing on both literary scholarship and historical research, Louis Schwartz provides important readings of Milton's poetry, including Paradise Lost, as well as a wide-ranging survey of the medical practices and religious beliefs that surrounded the perils of childbirth. The reader is granted a richer understanding of how seventeenth-century society struggled to come to terms with its fears, and how one of its most important poets gave voice to that struggle.