Milton's Forsaken Proserpine

Abstract

AbstractReaders of Paradise Lost have long found patterns of allusion to the rape of Proserpina, a myth about the brutal encroachment of mortality onto human consciousness. Yet the Proserpina myth haunts the whole corpus of Milton's English and Latin poetry. Manuscript deletions and other evidence show that Milton returned compulsively to the scene of the goddess's rape, even as he tried to suppress the evidence of its hold on his imagination. Milton's ongoing fascination with Proserpina's ravishment by the king of the underworld reflects a lifelong habit of linking erotic desire to the death of the body, a habit that persisted even after Milton left behind the dualist Neoplatonism of his early poems. Tracing patterns of engagement with the figure of Proserpina across Milton's poetry—with a focus on neglected allusions to Claudian's fourth‐century De Raptu Proserpinae—this essay explores Milton's troubled portrayal of sexuality and the mortal body, and shows how both are bound together in his writings wit...