Date of Award
2011
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Harrawood, Michael
Abstract
This thesis will engage in the three crisis episodes that I call Don’t Do It moments in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, moments in which the poem suddenly turns into a suspense movie. As in a slasher film, or even a mystery film, the reader responds emotionally as the poem brings him or her to relive the seduction that leads to the fall of man. I will argue that Milton deliberately organizes the entire poem around these moments in Book IX in order to recreate the Fall in the reader’s mind, emphasizing it’s unfairness and inevitability: the readers suffering for Adam and Eve’s sin. I will suggest a connection between the text and the reader by means of empty signifiers. Unlike Adam and Eve, the reader understands the meaning of the word ‘death’ and the powerful consequences they will face once they separate and fall.
Recommended Citation
Blake, Abigail, "Don’t do it! : Reader response in John Milton’s Paradise Lost" (2011). Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019. 40.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_honors_2/40
Extent
49 p.
Identifier
FA00003561
Comments
Includes bibliography.