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This is a Literature Review study.

September 16, 2025

Mary Robinson’s Theatrical Imagination: Chastity, Melancholy, and Milton’s A Mask

Puntos clave

Robinson’s work suggests that Milton does not inhibit women’s writing, instead offering a supportive framework.
The 1796 sonnet sequence highlights the rehabilitation of Sappho while employing Milton’s poetic elements.
Robinson's adaptation of Comus illustrates themes of chastity and female melancholy effectively.
This piece examines Robinson’s unique use of enjambment to reflect her mobility impairment in the context of the celestial.

Resumen

ABSTRACT This article takes up a question that has vexed feminist Milton scholars for the past fifty years: does Milton inhibit women’s writing? Mary Robinson’s 1796 sonnet sequence Sappho and Phaon would suggest that the answer is no. This article examines Robinson’s loose adaptation of Comus, an abridgment of Milton’s A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, in which Robinson herself had performed the role of the Lady. It contends that Robinson, like Milton, presents a positive construction of the melancholic poet who preserves chastity. Robinson’s inclusion of Milton’s Sonnet 1 in the preface to her sequence directs readers to her own use of the nightingale. As Robinson rehabilitates the image of Sappho, she uses enjambment in depicting heavenly bodies, which this article argues puns on her own embodiment as mobility impaired.

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