Approaching Apocalypse: Unveiling Revelation in Victorian Writing by Kevin Mills (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 343 marshal, without prejudice as to temporal achievement or geographic ongm, myriad cultural artifacts gleaned from an encompassing sweep of human creative activity.Classicalmythology figures such as Echo and Narcissus and Philomela turn up readily in such a space, but so does a figure like the Apache Changing Woman. Cultures oral and written, primitive and sophisticated, ancient and contemporary trade places as Shullenberger tracks details ofinfluence or affinityto chart the vivid landscape of initiatory mystery with impressive learning, scintillating insight and an unflagging zest for adventure. Every artifact is meticulously analyzed and woven into a pattern that leads ultimately to the luminous vision with which he concludes his book: Milton's Lady in fluid motion, a kind ofgrand jete from her foundation of proven moral sensibility into the freedom ofhuman promise that awaits one whose chaste footing has been tested in the liminal zone of this initiation. The Lady dances out of the masque into "the future, with the soul's wisdom and body's knowledge of a woman actively and ardently prepared.... Loving virtue, she is free" (279). Her ecstatic dance is not merely choreographed to round out the celebration honoring as Lord President of Wales the Earl of Bridgewater. The Lady'swordless dance bears the fruit of multiple forces having converged to produce the "freedom and pleasure ...that Milton scripted for Alice Egerton:' Since the Lady'sfulfilled meaning implies the entire panoply of creative forces that shape it, it also resonates far beyond its artistic construct-beyond Ludlow and beyond Alice Egerton herself. Milton's masque projects an optimistic and enlightened prospect: a surprisingly feminist vision of societal reform that Milton at that point expected soon to become universal. William Shullenberger's Lady in the Labyrinth is a groundbreaking study that places Milton's Comus in brilliant new light. The author's expatiating instinct can occasionally seem prolix, but it rewards the reader again and again with unexpected discovery. Shullenberger's lucid, rhythmic, graceful prose is free from jargon or gratuitous abstraction, passionate in its commitments. Milton could not have asked for an interpreter more sympathetic and responsive, or more imaginatively alive to the Lady'sexperience than this. Lana Cable The University at Albany Approaching Apocalypse: Unveiling Revelation in Victorian Writing. By Kevin Mills. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2007. ISBN: 13: 978-0-8387-5627-0 and ISBN:10:0-8387-5627-1. Pp. 7-228. $49.50. It is fascinating to document the longevity of a concept like "The Apocalypse:' And it is impossible to be writing a review of Kevin Mills' superb study without 344 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE recognizing how that concept still continues to compel writers and poets today. TheLondon Times reported recently that Dan Brown's four stories of symbologist Robert Langdon's adventures in history hold respectively first, second, third, and fourth places in the sale of adult paperbacks in the United Kingdom (London Timesonline, 6 September 2009). On its first day of release, Brown'sbook TheLost Symbolsold one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the U. S.,the U. K. and Canada, making it the fastest-selling adult novel in history. It was number one on the New York Times Best Seller List for hardcover books. TheLostSymbolis in itself a kind of Book of Revelation for modern times. And such apocalyptic explorations include the continued discussions about the Aztec calendar and the state of the world as we know it in years 2012-2013and the History Channel's series titled After thePeople HaveGone. Things "apocalyptic" tend to travel in rather predictable patterns, occurring at the end of one century and the beginning of a new, or paralleling huge shifts in human thought and experience. The loss of the predictable and fear of future unknowns also seem to playa significant role. Philosophers and astronomers have long tried to find the science behind apocalyptic events in the trajectories of the planets and the interstices of the human mind. Tragedies, wars, and momentous changes in the human story also drive writers and thinkers to look for reasons, endings, explanations, surety, and hope. The more unstable the world appears, the more desperate the search for those explanations. All of this begs the...