'Comfort Me With Apples': Ambivalent Allusion in Paradise Lost

Détails

ID Serval
serval:BIB_C67608FF502C
Type
Article: article d'un périodique ou d'un magazine.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Titre
'Comfort Me With Apples': Ambivalent Allusion in Paradise Lost
Périodique
The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms
Auteur⸱e⸱s
Forsyth N.
ISSN-L
1084-8770
Statut éditorial
Publié
Date de publication
03/2012
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
17
Numéro
2
Pages
185-196
Langue
anglais
Notes
Special Issue: John Milton, European, Part 1
Résumé
Paradise Lost can be read on various levels, some of which challenge or even contradict others. The main, explicit narrative from Genesis chapters 2 and 3 is shadowed by many other related stories. Some of these buried tales question or subvert the values made explicit in the dominant narrative. An attentive reader needs to be alert to the ways in which such references introduce teasing complexities. The approach of Satan to Eve in the ninth book of Paradise Lost is loaded in just that way with allusion to the literature of Greece and Rome. The poem recovers for this long and intricately constructed passage the weight of classical reference, especially in similes, that it had during the first Satanic books. Gardens, both classical and biblical, disguised or transformed serpents, and the weight of allusions that Eve is required to bear, all threaten to undermine the meanings of the overt narrative. The narrator has difficulty rescuing Eve from the allusions she attracts, or the many stories told about her.
Site de l'éditeur
Création de la notice
13/03/2012 11:31
Dernière modification de la notice
20/08/2019 15:41
Données d'usage