Hermeneutic Objectivity and Validity - A Case of Feminist Misreading of Paradise Lost, Book 11. 573-87

Hermeneutic Objectivity and Validity

  This article engages in a debate with Anna K. Juhnke"s feminist reading of the sons of God episode in Book 11 of Paradise Lost in order to demonstrate that "traditional" criteria for interpretive objectivity and validity still retain their usefulness despite the postmodern Zeitgeist of relativity. The author counters Juhnke"s misreading by a close examination of the historical evidence, the biblical-exegetical commentary surrounding Genesis 6.1-6.4, ranging chronologically from major figures such as Augustine, Luther, Calvin and to minor commentators of the sixteenth century. Well aware of the "viciousness" of the hermeneutic circle, the author believes that comprehensiveness, what he calls the "iron discipline of context," provides the best guard. Against this historical background, the sons of God episode is reconsidered to demonstrate its emphatic antimisogyny, for Milton"s narrative manipulation reveals that the sons of God have already fallen before they encounter the bevy of fair women. In this demonstration, the concept of authorial design and intention are used to support the argument.