My father's daughterDeborah Milton's biography of silence

  1. Sánchez-Palencia Carazo, Carolina 1
  2. Almagro, Manuel 1
  1. 1 Universidad de Sevilla
    info

    Universidad de Sevilla

    Sevilla, España

    ROR https://ror.org/03yxnpp24

Journal:
Journal of English Studies

ISSN: 1576-6357

Year of publication: 2000

Issue Title: New Voices in Literature

Issue: 2

Pages: 113-124

Type: Article

DOI: 10.18172/JES.62 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

More publications in: Journal of English Studies

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Abstract

In The Tree of Knowledge (1990) Eva Figes re-creates the life of John Milton's daughter, Deborah, who, due to the poet's blindness, became the actual "hand" of the author. At the end of her life she gives us an alternative vision of the poet both as father and writer in a narrative which, as opposed to the centrality of Milton's narratives, concentrates upon the marginal aspects of everyday life. Thus, in Figes's novel the "grand narrative" constituted by Milton and his work is displaced by Deborah's "petite histoire", which paradigmatically exemplifies the role women have been assigned in History. That displacement of one narrative by another is in itself an occasion to re-consider the validity and the culturality of our notions of historical relevance.

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