Eve’s Food Preparation: Art and Experience in Eden :: Research Papers

eventides Food Preparation Art and Experience in promised land The arts of the first couple before the Fall have beenextensively written on. It seems that most critics view prelapsarian artas befitting and natural to Eden, as evidence of prelapsarian splendor.Ann Torday Gulden states that art in Eden is socially neutral Surelyart is innocuous in Eden, an organic part of paradisal bliss (18).Indeed, evens artistic natural action makes Eden seem all the more delightfulto the reader. However, with a too-careful examination of how Eves artis perceived by the poesys male characters, it becomes evident thatEves aesthetics do not quite fit. It is tempting for the reader, wholives in a fallen world, so unequivocally in favor of artistic culture,to praise Eden for examples of ethnical activity within it. However,just about every example of Eves artistic activity is characterized by analoofness from divine treatment. The male authoritative characters ofParadise Lost primarily ignore Eves examples of talented artistry, givingneither praise nor disapproval. But while the inadequacy of recognition speaksvolumes about her low status, it allows her an expansive autonomy fromthe divinely accepted modes of Edenic worship and devotion whichserve to revere God. If the authoritative male characters admiration hercreativity as inconsequential, then there is almost no choke to the degreeof autonomous creativity she can have within that localised sphere ofartistry no one is watching her or correcting her. The modality in whichEve prepares food for the dinner guest, the angel Raphael, is a bootillustration of both Eves removal from the divine discourse and herexpansion of a cultural, creative realm in which she can act, kind of thanfollow.The first thing to recognize about the scene of Raphaels reachingto instruct Adam and Eve is that Eve is excluded from proximity to thedivine by Adam. To some degree, Adam actually forces her removal.The first one to see Raphael at tack is Adam, of course. He saysHaste hither, Eve, and, worth thy sight, beholdEastward among the trees what glorious radiation patternComes this way moving seems another mornRisen on mid-noon. most great behest from HeavenTo us perhaps he brings, and will vouchsafeThis day to be our guest. But go with speed,And what thy stores contain bring forth, and rain cats and dogsAbundance fit to honour and receiveOur heavenly stranger...(5.308) Adams language is unquestioning. It is clear that he knows a guestfrom Heaven is on his way. The speed with which he recognizes thatthe thing on the horizon is from Heaven shows that he has an intuitive