The Rape of Proserpina and Eve's Fall in Milton's Paradise Lost
"She pluck'd, she eat" (PL IX.781). With these four monosyllables, Milton succinctly announces the Fall of Eve in Paradise Lost. Eve's Fall, however, is far more complex than a simple act of eating, for her disobedience represents a much greater loss of chastity. Indeed, Milton implies that the Fall is a violation not only of God's sole commandment but also of Eve herself, for Milton implicitly equates Dis's ravishment of Proserpina with Satan's seduction of Eve. Milton weaves the Proserpina myth, as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, throughout Paradise Lost as a trope for rape and Eve's loss of virginity, and this culminates in a metaphorical construction of the Fall as a rape of Eve by Satan. Milton's depiction of Eve's ravishment, moreover, is ambivalently misogynistic, for Milton casts Eve as a seductress who has largely engendered her own rape.
Early in Book IV of Paradise Lost Milton compares Eden to beautiful landscapes of classical mythology, while insisting that his Christian Garden is "not" like such pagan settings. Milton's negative syntax implies the ineffability of Eden—this unfallen paradise cannot be described by a fallen poet to fallen readers and certainly cannot be evoked by pagan similes. Yet Milton's lush catalogue of classical landscapes forces an analogy, and as we amble through the myths, we conjure an image of Eden based on its classical precursors. Particularly salient is the first classical allusion, which compares Eden to Enna:
Not that fair field
Of Enna, where Proserpin gath'ring flow'rs
Herself a fairer Flow'r by gloomy Dis
Was gather'd, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world
(PL IV.268-72) ...
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...ks to be the "greater Man." Later in his letter to Diodati, Milton quips: "You ask what I am thinking of? So may the good Deity help me, of immortality!" (Patterson 27). With his chaste epic ambition, Milton seeks to place himself in the role of savior, using his poetic brilliance to undo the Death engendered by the Fall.
Works Cited
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Milton, John, and Barbara Kiefer Lewalski. Paradise Lost. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2007. Print.
- - -, Samson Agonistes. In John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1957. 550-93.
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Patterson, Frank Allen, ed. The Works of John Milton, Volume XII. New York: Columbia UP, 1936.
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...to mankind in Paradise Lost - one of the fundamental concepts in Christianity and vital to Milton's objective to "justify the ways of God to men" (1, 26) - the gods in the Aeneid are continually reminding Aeneas that he cannot afford to be distractive by the temptresses that are women because the future of Rome lays in his hands. Milton's God, on the other hand, allows Eve to fall and her blatant transgression caused the loss of paradise and all of creation has to experience the consequences of original sin. In Paradise Lost Eve was expected to submit to her ultimate authority, Adam. Rather, it is Adam in Book IX who submits to Eve's unreasonable discourse on separation. Indeed, the implication of a man (as a superior being) succumbing to feminine wiles and passion is an intense concept which - for both Virgil and Milton - threatened the very basis of their society.
In many of Joyce Carol Oates short stories, she expresses her emotions from dealing with a tragic childhood, and trying to combine the natural world to what it really means. She wanted her stories to feel real by writing about society and people today, that others could connect with.
After three hundred years of suffering and oppression by the Spanish crown, and inspired by the fire of revolution sweeping over the world in places such as United States and France, the Mexican population finally decided that they could endure no more, it was time for a change! In this essay I put together some of the various factors of Spanish colonialism that led to the Mexican independence. These factors were the socio political conditions of nueva españa, the enlightment era, as well as various leaders
Oates, Carol Joyce. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?." Kirszner and Mandell. 505-516. Compact Literature. Boston: Wadsworth,2013,2012,2007. Print.
The Spanish-American war was believed to be progressing over some time back in the 1800’s. There were several problems that contributed to the beginning of the war that had severe impact on several different people, places, governments, and possessions. In the paper I will be dissecting each impact and controversy that both led up the war, that happened during the war, and the reasons and consequences behind the actions that were taken before during and after it. The war itself had begun on April 25, 1898 when the U.S decided to take action on Spain after the destruction of the Battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. Following the war a treaty was signed called the “treaty of Paris,” on December 10, 1898. This was believed to be the end of the war in which Spain lost significant, if not all control over its empire in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines Islands, Guam and several other islands.
Milton establishes himself as the legitimate teller of the tale – and this tale will take us beyond the mythology of the Greeks’Aonian Mount and inoculate us against Hell’s prodigiousness. He is taking us beyond mythological or explanatory pictures of ourselves, to an area where we may bask in a greater comfort:
Steadman, John M. Milton's Epic Characters: Image and Idol. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press. 1968
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Achinstein, Sharon. "Samson Agonistes." A Companion to Milton. Thomas N. Corns, ed. Blackwell Publishing, 2003.