Department
English
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 1994
Abstract
The critical separation scene between Adam and Eve in Book IX of Paradise Lost has long been something of a crux for Milton's readers. Recent critical opinion of the passage has seen in it chiefly an indictment of Adam: for one group of readers, he ls the overbearing husband trying to suppress the burgeoning independence of his wife; for another, he fails as a spiritual leader in not suppressing that independence enough. I would like to offer an alternative reading of the passage by redirecting our attention to the simple dynamics of what we must remember is ultimately a prelapsarian debate between disputants who are, as a consequence, inherently guiltless. Rather than exploring who is most responsible for the loss of Paradise, Milton shows us chiefly in this scene what occurs in discourse when unfallen humans are simply unable to agree.
Publication Title
Philological Review: Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association
Publisher Statement
Copyright 1994, Arkansas Philological Association, Published by the University of Central Arkansas Press. https://arkansasphilological.com/about/.
Recommended Citation
Curlin, Jay, "Casual Discourse Lost: The Separation of Adam and Eve" (1994). Articles. 246.
https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/articles/246