SOURCE: “From Woman Warrior to Warrior Reasoner: Lady Alice and Intellectual Freedom in A Mask,” in Arenas of Conflict: Milton and the Unfettered Mind, edited by Kristin Pruitt McColgan and Charles W. Durham, Susquehanna University Press, 1997, pp. 93-106.

In the essay below, Parisi examines the character Lady Alice from Milton's Comus and discusses the portrayal of women's ability to reason.

The evaluation of Milton's women as reasoners stirs much of the debate for or against an implied feminism in the major poetry.¹ The sure-spoken Lady of A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle provides an example. Combatting Comus, she quickly moves past the awkwardness of a woman breaking silence in this period. Reason justifies her:

                                        I had not thought to have unlockt my lips In this unhallow'd air, but that this Juggler Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes, Obtruding false rules prankt in reason's garb. I...