In my last post on Milton’s Paradise Lost I referred to the episode where, prior to the Fall, the archangel Raphael visits Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and dines with them. Continue reading “Food for Angels”
Author: Rebecca Selman
Forbidden Fruit
In my previous two posts on Jacobean revenge drama I explored the way the playwrights use food for nefarious purposes or to symbolise corruption (see here and here). In Paradise Lost (published 1667), John Milton retells in a long epic poem the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, a narrative with food at its heart. Continue reading “Forbidden Fruit”
The Corrupting Effects of Food
In my last post I wrote about apricots in The Duchess of Malfi and how they are used to ascertain the Duchess’s suspected pregnancy. Once the pregnancy – and the Duchess’s marriage to her steward Antonio, her social inferior – are confirmed, the Duchess’s villainous brothers set out to destroy her and her family (see http://frompagetoplate.com/2014/05/25/apricots/)
The idea that food, rather than being a form of celebration or sustenance, can have a more malevolent side to it, is a popular idea in early 17th century Jacobean revenge drama. Continue reading “The Corrupting Effects of Food”
Apricots
As we bid farewell – for the time being – to Shakespeare, and move on a few years into gory Jacobean revenge drama, we say hello to the apricot. It has been speculated that the apricot originated in either Armenia – about 50 different varieties of the fruit are grown there nowadays – India or China. By Roman times apricots had spread into the Mediterranean region, and they have been known in England since the 16th century; one story says that Henry VIII’s gardener introduced apricots to England from Italy in 1542. Continue reading “Apricots”