Emily E. Stelzer - Gluttony and Gratitude: Miltons Philosophy of Eating

Gluttony andGratitude

Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies

General Editor

Rebecca Totaro

Editorial Board

Originally titled the Duquesne Studies: Philological Series (and later renamed the Language & Literature Series), the Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies Series has been published by Duquesne University Press since 1960. This publishing endeavor seeks to promote the study of late medieval, Renaissance, and seventeenth century English literature by presenting scholarly and critical monographs, collections of essays, editions, and compilations. The series encourages a broad range of interpretation, including the relationship of literature and its cultural contexts, close textual analysis, and the use of contemporary critical methodologies.

Gluttony and Gratitude

Miltons Philosophy of Eating

EMILY E. STELZER

The Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stelzer, Emily E., author.

Title: Gluttony and gratitude : Miltons philosophy of eating / Emily E. Stelzer.

Other titles: Medieval and Renaissance literary studies.

Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press ; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : Duquesne University Press, [2017] | Series: Medieval & renaissance literary studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: Explores the philosophical significance of gluttony in Paradise Lost, arguing that a complex understanding of gluttony and of ideal, grateful, and gracious eating informs the content of Miltons writing?Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017042071 | ISBN 9780271081007 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Milton, John, 16081674. Paradise lost. | Gluttony in literature. | Food in literature.

Classification: LCC PR3562 .S74 2017 | DDC 821/.4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042071

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for my family, especially Stephen

We conclude then that temperance would not be a kind of quietness, nor would the temperate life be quiet, as far as this argument is concerned at any rate, since the temperate life is necessarily an admirable thing.

plato, Charmides

Eating with the fullest pleasure pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. When I think of the meaning of food, I always remember these lines by William Carlos Williams, which seem to me merely honest:

There is nothing to eat,

seek it where you will,

but of the body of the Lord.

The blessed plants

and the sea, yield it

to the imagination intact.

wendell berry, Bringing It to the Table

This project would have never materialized without the encouragement, support, wisdom, and expertise of many people. I begin by thanking Michael Bauman, John Alvis, and David Davies, gracious teachers who first introduced me to the serious (and for me, exhilarating) study of John Milton, his thought, and his works. Bauman may not remember his kindness in offering an undergraduate course on Milton at my request the summer after I received my B.A., and then letting me audit that same course, but I will never forget this gift. Davies and Alvis advised me in a dissertation that became my first foray into the cornucopia of Miltons food metaphors. A seedling of this project was published in Early English Studies, now the Early Modern Studies Journal, and so I thank the editors, especially Amy Tigner, for early advice and permission to reprint. Many thanks are due to the Miltonists and early modernists who have encouraged me in my project at its various stages of development, among them Rebecca Totaro, Nigel Smith, Kristin Pruitt, Dennis Danielson, and Lara Dodds, and to the Milton Society of America, the Murfreesboro Conference on John Milton, the National Humanities Center, and the Lanier Theological Library for cultivating environments of inquiry, gracious conversation, and thoughtful debate. My gratitude extends to my colleagues in the School of Humanities at Houston Baptist University, whose conversations not only have provided the gentle pressure I needed to complete this project but also have enticed me to consider a few of countless interdisciplinary trails, that, if all followed, would make this project interminable. My anonymous readers and the editors at Duquesne University Press deserve no small thanks for their patience and attention to this monograph, which is much improved for their criticism and advice. I am immensely indebted to Susan Wadsworth-Booth and all those who have striven on behalf of the Press in its final year of operation, and to those at Penn State University Press for their support and adoption of the Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies Series. All above share in the credit for what is good in this book, while the responsibility for its weaknesses is solely mine. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my husband, Stephen, for his love, kindness, patience, good humor, encouragement, and companionship at table.