"Perplex't paths": youth and authority in Milton's Mask

This essay argues that John Milton's "A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle" (1634) is influenced by early modern concepts of childhood in a way that critics have not recognized. Childhood was a problematic concept in contemporary religious, pedagogical, and legal discourses. Children were depicted as models of submission, but prone to impetuous indiscretion, and their path to adult agency was strewn with pitfalls, especially in the liminal period of youth. "A Mask" engages with and transforms these discourses. It rejects the political quietism routinely associated with childhood and shows that the child's unique sensitivity may offer a route to a particularly powerful kind of voice.