Caring for Chastity in Milton’s Mask

Abstract

ABSTRACT John Milton’s Mask dramatizes a story of three young siblings, a sister and her two brothers, who find themselves lost in a magical forest. While they initially stick together, the brothers accidentally lose their sister, who is then pursued sexually by the sinister figure of Comus. Her brothers try in vain to rescue her, but instead she must be liberated from literal bondage by a benevolent goddess. Though her virginity triumphs, the solution is inherently messy and improvisational, raising questions about what caring for chastity really means in a social world of shared vulnerability. Scholars have long overlooked the importance of the sibling collective to the Mask’s representation of chastity, which is regarded, I think wrongly, as a private virtue. Rather this article reads chastity not as a theory, or a monastic self-practice, but as a strangely communal practice of care. I ask: why do the brothers lose their sister, and what is the nature of their obligation towards her? Are they to blame when they are not yet legal adults? What is their duty of care, and how does chastity test the limits of collective practice?