![]() It has been depicted numerous times, particularly through art such as Michelangelo’s The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, where Eve is presented in her nakedness, as a seductress and a temptress to Adam with her sinful soul. This image is common to all of our minds, the moment of the Fall through the seduction of Eve by the devilish Satan. During the fall, ‘The woman, opportune to all attempts’, the weaker form of humanity, is tempted by the satanic serpent to indulge in the Tree of Knowledge, where she ‘greedily ingorge without restraint’ in lust. However, to truly understand the belief surrounding the role and nature of women in Milton’s time, the focus must shift to the perception of her in a post-lapsarian environment. Within this, Milton draws on ancient interpretations of women as weaker vessels, those not truly created from God but a mere imitation of his first, perfect creation: man. These are examples of how Milton presents women pre-Fall, representing the historical European notion that women, formed from the bone of Adam, are lesser than their husbands and male peers, and should be devoted to male existence in an almost divine manner. ![]() In a woman than to study household good” or “safest and seemliest by her husband stays” Numerous examples occur throughout the text of the dichotomy of gender roles in the period: Milton’s poem is directly steeped in this understanding, acting as a reflection of the society in which it was created. Milton’s first interpretation of Adam and Eve is founded on the idea that they represent every man and every woman on Earth, and that they therefore reflect the anthropological roles of men and women in early modern society. However, one of the most interesting aspects of the work is his depiction of the mother of humanity, Eve, which we can use to understand the role of women in early modern society, and also beliefs surrounding their nature and souls. First published in 1667, Milton sought to ‘justify the ways of God to men’ in his reimagination of Genesis, but he extends this to include other stories of biblical precedent such as the rebellion and justification of Satan, as well as the other fallen angels. Moving on to trace some outlines of the reception history of Paradise Lost from its first publication until today, the chapter ends by looking at theoretical perspectives of recent Milton scholarship: (post)colonialism and the gender debate.John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, was a great feat of literature that inspired numerous writers, particularly Romantic poets such as William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley. language ‘tainted’ by the biblical fall). ![]() Central aspects are the multiplicity of genres in the epic, the peculiarities of the epic voice, the phenomenon of multilingualism and the problem of postlapsarian language (i.e. The chapter goes on to describe the epic’s politics of style and aesthetic strategies with an emphasis on how they are tied to Milton’s philosophical convictions. ![]() I focus on the topics of origin and exile free will and purifying trial and autonomy and servility. Charting Milton’s radical republicanism and heterodox religious principles, this chapter examines how his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667/1674), which narrates the fall of Satan and mankind, negotiates crucial political and theological concerns. ![]()
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