Milton’s Genderqueer Christianity

Abstract

abstract:Queer theory has never been an explicit strand of Milton studies, nor has Milton been central to early modern queer studies, in part because he resists the secularization that has been assumed to be a necessary condition of queerness. I propose that Milton’s value for early modern queer and trans theory in fact arises from his unique authority and canonical status as a radical Christian poet. We can trace in his writing the ambiguities and exclusions that inevitably permeate queer and trans scholarship as a contested and heterogeneous field. It is because of his Christian convictions, not in spite of them, that Milton allows us to understand religious thought as producing the unstable and promiscuous genders and desires that modern evangelical politics would prohibit.