This lecture examines Book Four's depiction of Adam and Eve and the sexual politics of life in Eden. Seventeenth-century political theory, particularly the work of Thomas Hobbes, is considered with a focus on then-contemporary theories of the structure and government of the first human societies. Critical perspectives on what have variously been proposed as sexist and feminist elements of Milton's Eden are surveyed. Milton's struggle with the problem of depicting an unfallen world to a fallen audience is closely detailed. The lecture concludes with a study of Rembrandt's 1638 drawing, "Adam and Eve."
A study of Milton's poetry, with some attention to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry.
Lecture Transcript, Handouts, and Reading Assignment
