Renaissance Scholar Wins Top Prize
Each year Early English Books Online (EEBO) sponsors a national
essay contest for the best undergraduate paper that draws upon
the primary resources available through its database. This year,
the Grand Prize and a cash award of $1,000 went to -Heidi Atwood
’04, an English major now studying at the University of
Alabama  in
the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies.
Atwood’s winning essay, which she wrote in Professor Kate
Moncrief’s Milton Honors Seminar, is titled “’Thy
Leaden Heels No Golden Wit Doth Show’: Physick, Alchemy,
and the Body Corporeal in Milton’s Paradise Lost.”
The paper examines the concept of alchemy and early modern medical
theories—both of which share the same philosophical basis,
Atwood says. She explores how Milton’s descriptions of
Adam, Eve and Satan are shaped by these theories, and why the
characters adopt alchemy as a means to gain physical and spiritual
redemption. She draws heavily on scientific treatises and medical
texts she found during the course of “several weeks”
spent in the library, poring through primary sources available
through EEBO.
In Milton’s time, alchemy was seen as a way to perfect
the soul. At the same time, medical theories blurred the distinction
between physical and spiritual wellness.
“In Paradise Lost,” Atwood says, “Satan is
endeavoring to make himself better, without much success. With
Adam and Eve, Milton gives us the idea of that when the souls
of a man and woman are joined, they form a perfected whole.
This is the bodily version of the philosopher’s stone.”
Atwood found one text describing how an alchemist would go about
his work—using a constant source of heat to sublimate
pure elements from base metals. In Milton’s text, Adam
makes reference to lightning providing that source of heat.
Atwood writes that Milton’s work “echoes the early
modern notion that one’s bodily form is determined by
the purity of one’s soul and vice versa.… I argue
that Adam, Eve and Satan are influenced by the humors that are
ascribed to them and that their bodily forms reveal the weakness
of their souls. Furthermore, once in a fallen state, Adam and
Eve adopt the alchemical principles that form the base of early
modern humoral theory in order to heal themselves.”
What made Atwood’s paper stand out among all the other
entries? Her background in philosophy helped, as well as her
incisive cultural reading of the text through the lens of her
selected primary texts.
“This is a really sophisticated paper,” Moncrief
explains. “Her use of primary sources is comprehensive
and her ability to integrate complex seventeenth--century sources
with the literary text and literary theory was remarkable. She
also was addressing an area that scholars hadn’t addressed
before.”
“I really loved the class and having access to EEBO,”
she says. “It’s exciting to find something you can
draw out of the text from documents not considered literature.
I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, but taking classes
with Professor Moncrief really made me want to go for Renaissance
Studies, and enabled me to fulfill my potential. Plus, I’m
really excited to see Washington College’s name at the
top of that list.”
Her winning essay can be read online at http://www.lib.umich.edu/tcp/eebo/edu/edu_win_04.html.
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