Public Dreams and Private Myths

Abstract

ter, however, is a separate question. Here I strongly disagree that gesture of submission elicits Adam's faith or that Eve's plea first open[s] Adam's eyes. In Milton's narrative there is a quiet but definite disjunction between Adam's reconciliation to his spouse and his reconciliation to the Almighty. He rejects the vehement despair of loving and suicidal words (x.999-1007) in favor of divine words freshly remembered-now as a promise instead of a sentence (x. 103035). The content of this sudden literary insight does not follow from the drift of her romantic desperation. God's motions work in spite of despair. When Hunter argues that love is the immediate cause of Adam's faith, she is faced with the task of explaining how a selfless and Christlike love urges suicide upon her mate.