Milton's Daughters

Blind Milton Dictating Paradise Lost To His Daughters

Henry Fuseli

Samuel Johnson in Lives of the Poets shaped posterity's opinion of the old, blind Milton's behavior toward the daughters, to whom he dictated his most famous writings (as Fuseli shows above) –

"Milton's republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in petulance impatient of control, and pride disdainful of superiority. He hated monarchs in the state, and prelates in the church; for he hated all whom he was required to obey. It is to be suspected, that his predominant desire was to destroy, rather than establish, and that he felt not so much the love of liberty, as repugnance to authority."

"It has been observed, that they who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it. What we know of Milton's character, in domestick relations, is, that he was severe and arbitrary. His family consisted of women; and there appears in his books something like a Turkish contempt of females, as subordinate and inferiour beings. That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he suffered them to be depressed by a mean and penurious education. He thought women made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion."

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Fuseli, on the other hand, represented powerful and autonomous women in painting after painting –






This final Fuseli is called Brunhilde Observing Gunther Whom She Has Tied To The Ceiling, but I prefer to think of it as The Spirit of Milton's Daughters Avenged At Last.