For Tuesday, February 23, please read from Book 4, line 131 through all the selections included by the Norton from Books 5, 7, and 8 (that is, pp. 1535-1566).

Study Questions on Books 4-8:
1. Compare Satan's comments on gratitude (4: 45-57) to Adam and Eve's  words and feelings at 4: 412-439, 444-448, and 724-735.

2. The delights of the unfallen Adam and Eve include intellectual discussions, expressions of love and admiration for one another, autobiographical storytelling, work, sleep, prayer, delicious meals, and erotic pleasure.  Define as clearly as possible the nature of one of these delights as Milton evokes it, noting the degree to which it is related to the others.  Are you surprised by any of them?  Why?

3.  Who is Eve?  How does she see herself?  How does Adam see her?  What are her greatest strengths (as a speaker, poet, thinker, student, lover, wife)?  Don't generalize; cite and interpret the text, being as specific as possible.

4.  Compare the content of Eve's Dream (5: 35-93) to the content of Raphael's answers to Adam in 5: 469-505.  Consider the imagery of ascent and of food, and analyze the different approaches to the concept of knowledge.

5.  Compare Adam's account of his first encounter with Eve (8: 452-520) with Eve's account of the same event (4: 440-491).
 A.  In what ways are the two accounts similar?
 B.  What do the differences between the two accounts tell us about the differences betweeen Adam's way of thinking/perceiving/feeling, and Eve's?
 C.  Why does Milton present two accounts, and why does he arrange them in this way, with Eve speaking first (to Adam) and Adam speaking later (to Raphael, and in Eve's absence)?

6.  Adam's first encounter with God.
 A.  What impression does God make upon Adam when he first  speaks to his creator?
 B.  What do we learn about Milton's God from the scene in which he and Adam discuss Adam's lonliness and desire for a mate?
 C.  What do we learn about Adam from this conversation/debate and from his account of it?  Consider:   his intellectual capabilities and analytic skills; his speaking abilities;  his sense of humor/wit;  his emotional needs  his attitude[s] toward Eve.
  D.  What do we learn about Milton's God from this scene?

For Monday, March 1, please read Book 9 of Paradise Lost

Study Questions on Book 9:

1.  Do we learn anything new about Satan from what we see of him in the first half of Book 9?  Is he changed at all from what he was like when we first saw him in Book 1?

2.  Eve decides that she would like to go off on her own.  Why?  Don't just give an impressionistic response; consider carefully the evidence provided by the text of Book 9 and earlier books.  Do the reasons she gives in her conversation/argument with Adam tell (either explicitly or implicitly) the whole story?

3. Perspectives on the Fall of Eve
  A. "Daughter of God and man" (4: 660 and 9: 291)--
  To what extent is Eve's fall involve her defying parental authority?  (Think about the ways in which Adam is a father to Eve [cf. 4: 635, 8: 465-468 and 494-497, and the passages in 9 where they debate whether she should leave his side], and compare Eve's behavior with that of the Son in Book 3.)
 B. "My fairest, my espoused" (5: 18)--
  To what extent is Eve's fall a kind of adultery (i.e., an act of sexual infidelity)?  Cf. 4: 738-775, 5: 385-391 and 443-450.
 C. "Law to ourselves . . ." (9: 654)--
  To what extent is Eve's fall a political rebellion? (Cf. Satan's political language in Books 1 and 2).

4. Perspectives on the Fall of Adam
 A. Compare Adam's decision (9: 896-959) and Eve's response to it (9: 961-997) with the Son's decision (3: 227-271) and the Father's and angels' response to it.
 B. Compare Adam's emotional and sexual responses to the Fallen Eve (9: 896-959, 997- 1045, 1067-1098) with Satan's responses to Sin (2: 737-767, 815-844).

5. Everything about Edenic life changes once Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit.  Compare the following experiences in its prelapsarian form with the form it takes after the Fall: Eating, Praying, Sex, Conversation, and--especially--"Knowing" evil.

6. Our last glimpse of Satan--Compare Satan's return to Hell with his departure from it: How does he speak in each situation? How does he look?  How do the other devils respond to him?