Milton s Paradise Lost Lanyer s Eve s Apology Who...

Sama Alaa El Feky 900121886 Monday, May 23, 2016 Professor Justin Kolb Seventeenth Century Literature Paper 3 Milton’s Paradise Lost Lanyer’s Eve’s Apology: Who makes the better Eve argument? Being the first to fall for the biggest sin and the sole representation of women, God’s Eve has been distinctively portrayed countless times. Both John Milton and Aemilia Lanyer convey two stimulating views of Eve. Milton in Paradise Lost captures Eve as a rebel who risks an entire mankind to evil, while Lanyer in Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women completely defends Eve’s innocence, insisting she is collateral damage out of Adam’s actions. They use Adam and Eve as symbols of their sex to shape women’s nature and role. Although the poets’ arguments are clearly different from each other, their perceptions of Eve as a woman are awfully similar. Compared to Milton’s, Lanyer’s poem falls flat as she seems to support his belief, which is that women are too weak and incapable. In her attempt to defend women, Lanyer misses the fact that she is not only attacking men but also women, only strengthening Milton’s argument. One one hand, John Milton argues against women ever being equal to men through Eve in Paradise lost. God himself made men have a higher status than women, so they simply can never be equal. Milton completely blames Eve for the fall, as naturally when she persistently tries to escape the gender boundaries and seek equality or superiority over Adam, the result is disastrous.