"This intellectual being": Language and being in "Paradise Lost"

Christopher Velten Barr, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation explores the nexus of choice, language, and being in Paradise Lost. Every choice potentially changes the chooser's being, and every change in being marks both the chooser's language, and interpretations. The text, thus, enmeshes its characters and readers within a complex network of interdependent choices. Although "Man's first disobedience" seems locked within the narrative of Genesis, Milton insists that the reader ("the Fruit/Of that Forbidden Tree") reconsider that fatal choice. He insists that we choose again, and by choosing recall and, perhaps, correct the error of our "first parents." Chapter 1 selectively surveys the field of readerly choice and argues for an approach to Paradise Lost that respects the sacred nature of this text as a critical parameter, and that is sensitive to the problematic of language posed by postmodern literary speculation. Chapter 2 proposes an unfallen semiotics, and then uses that semiotics to read Eve's retelling of her coming into being. Chapter 3 applies the same approach to Adam's retelling of his coming into being, and explores the many parallels between these two central passages. Chapter 4 outlines a fallen semiotics, and explores the nature of the sign of evil. Chapter 5 reads Eve's dream--Adam's and Eve's first interpretation of a sign of evil. Chapter 6 reads the fall of man, and finds the beginning of repair or continued fall within the breach itself. Thus, fallen man exists always on the verge of regeneration. It is a matter of choice. From the silence or the cacophony of the arena of choice, Milton argues, the voice of Providence emerges.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Miller, Purdue University.

Subject Area

British and Irish literature

COinS