[Milton-L] Eve's curls

[J.B. Lethbridge]

Vines such as ivies kill trees eventually. jbl

wmmoeck at aol.com wrote:
>      Perhaps Prof Dobranski is best qualified to answer a question that 
> has always pestered me regarding Eve's curls:
>       Has anyone pursued the possibility that the subjection in question 
> refers to the subjection of Adam to Eve?
>      Adam's Book 8 confession to Raphael of the potential for 
> uxuriousness in his make-up would make support such an alternate reading 
> of 4.307-9.  When the word is used at 10.153, the reference is to the 
> subordination of Adam to the beauty of Eve, who was created "lovely to 
> attact / Thy Love, not thy subjection."  To read the same meaning back 
> into 4.307-9 is initially complicated by the phrase "by her yielded," 
> but the OED gives one possible archaic definition of the verb form of 
> "yield" (II. 10. c) as "to exercise, exert (a function, force)."
>      That meaning was used as late as 1581, which is hardly contemporary 
> with PL, but obviously I subscribe to the Wittreich- McColley-Gallagher 
> camp of apologists.  I prefer contemplating the idea of Eve being the 
> more powerful of the two when Adam and Eve are together, as trees are 
> oftentimes choked by the ivy growth attached to them. 
>  
> 
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-- 
J.B. Lethbridge
(Gen. Ed. The Manchester Spenser)
English Seminar
Tuebingen University
Wilhelmstrasse 50
72074 Tuebingen
Germany