"A Meet and Happy Conversation": Milton and Divorce in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

Abstract

abstract:Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre has long been recognized as a feminist revision of Paradise Lost as told from Eve's perspective. Written at a time of significant legal reform concerning marriage and divorce in nineteenth-century England, Jane Eyre offers a much more engaged rereading of Milton than scholars have observed. Centering on the novel's three proposal scenes, this article understands Brontë to draw upon Milton's The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce and extend its definition of marriage as "conversation" to include the experience of the wife.