Hazlitt defends Helena’s ( All’s Well ) virtue in a gentlemanlike way: “The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated. There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment lessens her in our esteem. Perhaps the romantic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl to one placed above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune, was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which she utters when young Rousillon leaves his mother’s house, under whose protection she has been brought up with him, to repair to the French king’s court.”
OK, so. This is the same Helena who does the bed trick to get her reluctant husband impregnate her, right?
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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