as we weep not for the womb,
the memories of which places
we extinguished like the sword of God.
Surely we forgot Eden. Surely we did.
Surely the first woman wept more tears
when her children left her arms
than when she herself was thrown from Paradise.
From the mouth of Eden they flew
to the far off lands of Libya, Ethiopia, Assyria,
reaching further to the banks of the Euphrates that runneth over,
places with names so perfect that God might have written them first.
And Eve was right to forget.
To forget Eden is to remember something greater,
something stifled by the excesses of Paradise.
Yea, ambition is a matrilineal trait.
When historians remark at great length
upon the gilded ages of humanity
they write not of serpents or apples or Eden,
but of Eve’s progeny.
Eve the founder, Eve the stateswoman, Eve the mother of all.
Now, her children in every crevice of the Earth,
we may say Eve the redeemer, a suitable epithet.
Behold, ye agnostical nostalgiacs, humanity out from under the thumb of Eden.
We humble inheritors who long for Paradise,
who weep for martyrs,
we are small.
Remember Eden. Remember why Eve forgot.
Our discussion of Paradise Lost and the various critics who wrote about it revealed novel ways of understanding the biblical figures in Genesis. Deepening our understanding of these characters and their actions can help us understand the moral claims in Paradise Lost, but I think that Eden as a setting has plenty to contribute in this regard as well although it has been less explored by the critics we have read. Eden’s purpose can be very effectively analyzed through the perspective of Eve, who was more invested in the curation of the garden than Adam but was able to recover more quickly after the fall. The relationship between Eve and Eden culminates in her departure at the end of Book 12. I am especially struck by the lines “Some natural tears they dropped but wiped them soon. / The world was all before them, where to choose / Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.” (Milton 12.645-57). These lines leave the first humans on an optimistic note, assured that something greater will come from their folly. I incorporated this optimism into the poem by considering its shape. The length of the quatrains increases as the poem continues and then declines just to become even longer by the end of the poem, reflecting Eve’s two greatest contributions to humanity: original sin and salvation.
It is furthermore infeasible and undesirable for humanity to mentally return to Eden. Considering that Adam and Eve must invest significant labor into maintaining the garden, Eden is a planned space for humans to occupy under God’s close supervision, not unlike a terrarium. It is not possible to take as creative and independent a creature as humanity and return it to the Edenic terrarium. They require harsher but less restrictive environments to truly thrive as I allege in the poem.