Figure Of Eve Research Articles

Can One Envisage The Garden of Eden Without Eve?

Milton’s Paradise Lost suggests that it is the woman, in the figure of Eve, who causes the fall of man. In addition, Eve plays a vital role in the loss of the Garden of Eden and everything related to it. To Milton’s mind, Adam was happy when he was alone in the Garden until Eve was created; and, by inference, all the problems began with her creation. Eve, a secondary and contingent creation, made from Adam, is commonly considered to be the source of sin and carnal temptation as the primary reasons of mankind’s fall from God’s favour. The Garden of Eden, the perfect place to live, was the first paradise granted to Adam by the Almighty; and his solitude was, in effect, a second paradise for him. My purpose in the present study is to discuss Eve’s seduction by the devilish Satan in Book IX of Paradise Lost when she is alone in the Garden. And the significance of the separation of the human pair that seems to be the catalyst for the fall of mankind is also taken into account. This tragic situation has a punishment as well as a reward for Adam and Eve. Their punishments are clearly stated in Genesis. But what concerns me here is the reward, especially the “reward” that is initiated by Eve: the fall from a state of “perfection” into a state of human reality, and it, interestingly, takes place within the framework of first Eve’s and then Adam’s crossing the boundaries dictated by God.

A Sigh After Sleep: Poiesis and the Sacramentality of Nature in Annette von Droste-Hüshoff’s Late Lyric

Abstract Critics of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff have long pursued the dominant themes of natural depiction and religiosity in her poetry, and a more recent strain of scholarship has been drawing out the ecological implications of the former, though less so of the latter. The article brings these different lines of interpretation together by exploring how Droste’s late work presents the connection between nature and poiesis as an effect of the Fall, and thus as integral to the human condition. The article shows how these themes are gathered around the figure of Eve and the leitmotif of sleep and argues that tracing these topoi allows us to see that Droste depicts the encounter with nature to be an inherently sacramental event, one which ultimately lays bare a postlapsarian—and ecologically relevant—kinship between poiesis, nature, and human Being.

Eve as Cyborg

The essay argues that the figure of the female cyborg introduced by Donna Haraway has yet to live up to its post-gender emancipatory promise. Both Haraway and Jack Halberstam contrast the female cyborg with the biblical Eve and her mythic origins in the garden of Eden. I argue that the figure of Eve is actually an ancient precursor to the female cyborg. Even more than the Greek myth of Pygmalion, the Eden myth shares common elements with later stories of man-made women. Like them, Eve was made to satisfy male desire, but then followed her own desires. Like later stories of female cyborgs, the representation of Eve reflects both male desire and male fear. After analyzing both Ovid’s Pygmalion and Genesis 2-3, I trace common elements through the nineteenth century science fiction novel L’Eve future and the twenty-first century film Ex Machina. Like Eve, the female cyborgs in these works are built in a garden and their “emancipation” occurs only within the confines of androcentric heteronormative gender patterns.

CAROL RAMA, ENTRE A SEXUALIDADE, A LOUCURA E A DOR

Por longo tempo ignorada pelos críticos da arte, a produção artística de Carol Rama (1918- 2015) ganha destaque em exposições e nas interpretações feministas. Sobressaem, em sua obra, temas relacionados à sexualidade, à fantasia erótica, à lascívia na relação entre os gêneros, à masturbação masculina e à exposição sensualizada de corpos nus, associados à loucura e à perversão sexual. As reflexões e os operadores conceituais de Foucault permitem lançar um olhar mais aprofundado a essa produção artística transgressora e evidenciar a crítica contundente que a artista italiana lança ao dispositivo da sexualidade, ao biopoder e à ciência eugenista. Como bem mostrou o filósofo, em sua leitura crítica tanto da ciência médica quanto do cristianismo, desde o século XIX, os processos normalizadores se apoiaram em noções médico-psiquiátricas, como a de psychopatia sexualis, reatualizando narrativas misóginas sobre o pecado original e a figura de Eva, quase sempre acompanhada pela serpente. Exploro esses temas a partir da arte pictórica de Carol Rama, vista como prática da liberdade feminina.

Figurae Mariae: Iconography of the Virgin and of Her Biblical Prefigurations in Early Modern Decorative Cycles in the Republic of Genoa

In the last years of the 16th century and then in the 17th century, the Republic of Genoa became an advanced laboratory for the dissemination of Marian images, in some cases reinforced by the association with the biblical heroines who were considered to be the Virgin’s prefigurations in the Old Testament. The richness and complexity of the typological parallels between such crucial iconographies as Mary’s Assumption and her Immaculate Conception on the one hand, and the figures of Eve (a negative typus), Judith and Esther on the other hand, developed in post-Tridentine literature and homiletics, found a persuasive visual translation in frescoes by prominent Genoese painters such as Andrea Ansaldo, Giulio Benso, Giovanni Battista Carlone and Domenico Piola, often commissioned by religious orders, as militant art aimed at asserting Catholic doctrines.

THE FIGURE OF EVE IN ROMANS 7:5-25

AbstractRom. 7:7-25 functions as a prosopopoiia in which Paul rhetorically assumes the identity of Eve in the scene of the primeval transgression. While most Hellenistic biblical interpreters associated Eve with "feminine" passivity, Paul in Romans 7 (and to a lesser degree in 2 Corinthians 11) calls this simplistic association into question by drawing attention to an element of ("masculine") activity in her experience that other interpreters either overlooked or could not satisfactorily account for in their interpretations of her story. In Rom. 7:7-13 Eve in the scene of the primeval transgression (Genesis 2-3) becomes a figure of passivity and activity paradoxically conflated. In the following verses (7:14-25) Paul manipulates this conflation in order to illustrate the ego or self split under sin. Observing the unique way in which Paul employs the figure of Eve in Rom. 7:5-25 allows us to read the passage as a meditation on the primeval transgression offering a new perspective on the relationship between the self under sin and the law. This relationship bears deep structural similarities to the relationship of the infant to its mirror image that Jacques Lacan examines in his lecture "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I" and a comparison between the two will clarify Paul's discussion of the connection between the self, the law, and sin in Rom. 7:5-25.

Writing Original Sin 1

Prudentius' Hamartigenia ("The Origin of Sin") places the corruption of language, emblematized in the poem by the splitting of Satan's tongue, at the origin of human sin. This article explores how Prudentius associates human sin with the inherently deceptive nature of language. In Hamartigenia, language and its snares, in particular figurative language, are programmatically associated with figures who represent the evils of division and imitation. Further, figured language, ornament, and rhetoric are conceived of as inherently feminine. The feminine is linked not only with the carnal, but also with language and its deceptive nature. Similarly, the reproductive process, whether sexual or linguistic, is associated not with the transcendent Logos, but with Satan and his split tongue, and with the viper and her endless brood of vicious offspring. The figures of Eve and of Lot's wife embody representation itself, and stand as signs of humanity's fundamental lack of "origin"ality.

Eve's Legacy: Revisions of the Biblical Creation Myth in the Poetry of Rose Ausländer

The figure of Eve is a powerful and evocative poetic image. In Rose Auslander's poetry, Eve sheds her traditional role as unwitting accomplice to the corruption of humanity and instead becomes a symbol of creation, creativity, and the power of the female poet. The poems emphasize Eve's active role in the Garden of Eden and constitute a playful revision of the Biblical creation myth. Auslander uses Eve to access the forbidden knowledge of opposites as a poetic source and reinterprets the role of sin as a driving force in the creative process. (KvH)

Access to the Divine: Gender and Votive Images in Moldavia and Wallachia

In Orthodox Last Judgements in sixteenth-century Moldavia, both Adam and Eve appear as saintly intercessors on behalf of mankind. The presence of these suppliant figures, on either side of the throne of hetimasia (Plate i), suggests that Orthodoxy and Catholicism differed significantly in their evaluations of the gender implications of the Fall. In medieval Catholicism the portrayal of a nimbed figure of Eve, or even of Adam, was inconceivable. In the West the ideas of the Fall as the cause of the crucifixion and of Mary as the antithesis of Eve produced a powerful set of negative views of women’s nature. The weaker sex was inherently vulnerable to temptation, flattery, and persuasion, endangering not only women’s souls but those of all mankind. The veneration of Mary tempered this negative image, but Mary’s extraordinary nature could never entirely erase the assumptions of innate female inferiority based on the role of Eve in the Fall. The depiction of Eve as a saint in Orthodox wall painting appears to offer an unexpected challenge to the view that such gender associations are the only possible outcome of the Genesis account. It is also tempting to relate the presence of such representations in Moldavia to the highly unusual social position of women in Moldavian society, based on inheritance customs which divided estates equally between both sons and daughters.

Editorial

With this issue of AJISS, we bring this volume to a close. This year hasbrought many changes to AJISS, not only in the scope of Islamic issueshighlighted within the articles, but also in the range of opinions articulatedby their authors. As a fourm for intellectual debates on issues relating toIslam, MISS strives to “push the intellectual envelope” of Islamic thought.No subject matter better reflects this attempt than the issue of women,which many articles in this issue analyze.In her article “Oikos/polis Conflict: Perspectives of Gender Feministsand Islamic Revivalists,” Zeenath Kausar examines the continuing debateon women’s political participation in order to demonstrate “how genderfeminists prefer women’s political participation at the cost of deconstructinggender and family, whereas contemporary Islamic revivalists “supportand encourage women’s political participation-but not at the expense offamily and the distinct identity of women.” After a brief survey of feministphilosophy and Muslim revivalist discourse, Kausar concludes that genderfeminists create an atmosphere of conflict between men and women, whileMuslim revivalists look at men and women as copartners in constructingcivilization.In questioning exactly this notion of copartnership between men andwomen, Hibba Abugideiri undertakes, in her “Allegorical Gender: TheFigure of Eve Revisited,” a discourse analysis of classical Islamic texts inorder to uncover how gender categories were constructed by classicalexegetes. By focusing on the figure of Eve, which “has not only definedthe identity of Muslim woman: it has also set the parameters for how thatidentity has been forged,” she questions the authoritative value and relevanceof the classical view of Eve for contemporary social demands.Underlying her Qur’anic rereading of Eve’s role in the parable of creationlies the goal of forging a new methodological approach to Islamic issuesthat need to be redressed, particularly in light of the current wave ofIslamic revivalism.Finally, in her review essay “Muslim Women’s Studies: Two Contributions,”Mohja Kahf engages in a critical analysis of two gender historiesthat interface nicely with Abugideiri’s study. Here, Kahf reviews two foraysinto the field of Muslim women’s studies that uncover the place of ...

Allegorical Gender

IntroductionIn the last decade, a number of monographs and forays in the field ofMuslim women’s studies have attempted to examine the place of theMuslim woman in the interpretive heritage of Islamic exegetical texts, particulythe hadith tufsir literature from the period of classical Islam.’ The figureof Eve (Hawwa’ in Qur’anic terminology) is an inevitable topic of discussionin all of these scholarly studies, primarily due to her definitive rolein the evolution of gender categories in the Islamic exegetical texts, and,subsequently, how this role has become an indicator of direction for theMuslim woman’s identity. The figure of Eve, in short, as articulated byMuslim classical exegetes, has not ony defined the identity of Muslimwoman; it has also set the parameters for how that identity has been forged.Yet, the traditional view of Eve portrays woman as both physically andmentally inferior to man, as well as spiritually inept. This classical interpretationof Eve has come to be endowed with sacred authority, more so byvirtue of its place in our Islamic past than by any Qur’anic sanction.This is not to imply that all of the medieval classical writings on Islamconstitute a monolithic whole. After all, the sources of the Shari‘ah, namely,the Qur’an and the hadith, historically have been highly adaptable texts:In the case of the Qur’an, its directives are general, broad, and flexiblein most cases; therefore they could be translated into the termsof a specific social reality of each generation of interpreters.Concerning the hadith . . . given the inevitable gap between theactual and the idealized. . . it is not surprising that the Hadith containsan abundance of varied and often contradictory traditions, ...

Eve: Islamic image of woman

Like other patriarchal traditions, Islam has been accused of a variety of injustices toward women. These are seen as both actual, in terms of the treatment of women, and theoretical insofar as women have been imagined as somehow lesser or inferior beings. The essay ‘Eve: Islamic Image of Woman’ attempts to deal with the latter of these accusations, focusing on the figure of Eve as portrayed in the Qur'ān, in Islamic tradition, and in contemporary Muslim writings. Here it is demonstrated that the way in which Eve is portrayed and understood has immediate and obvious ramifications for the Muslim view of women in general. In the Islamic case, the scriptural references to the wife of the first man show her neither as inferior or secondary to Adam in creation, nor in any way culpable in tempting him to eat of the forbidden tree. In the traditional narratives this situation is generally reversed, and both modes of creation and culpability are used to explain the nature of the female. References in modern writings represent a range of perspectives—some more Qur'ānic and some more traditional—and reflect the struggle of contemporary Islam to come to terms with the nature and role of women within the context of what is perceived as the Islamic view of humanity.