Corruption & Corruptibility Flashcards
“Thou has won /
The field” - Annabella
Eve “yielded to transgress /
The strict forbiddance”
Annabella has a “captive
heart”
Adam is “fondly overcome
with female charm”
CS Lewis: “Eve fell through Pride… Godhead is
what she thinks of when she eats…She decides that if she is to die, Adam must die with her”
At the end of Book 11 Adam says that “female perverseness”
is at the root of every threat to “human life” and “household peace”.
Giovanni compares Annabella’s “eyes” to
a “pair of stars”.
Annabella’s “lips would
tempt a saint”
Satan describes Eve’s “celestial
beauty”
Philotis represents society’s expectation of the ideal woman; submissive and virtuous - “shall I
resolve to be a nun?”
Soranzo describes Hippolita as
“foul”, living a “monstrous life”.
“One of the central literary modes
for anatomising the body…is the blazon” - Lisa Hopkins
“the poet-lover masters his lady by
inscribing her in a text, constructing and dismembering her”
- Valerie Traub
Celestial imagery links to the “star cross’d”
lovers Romeo and Juliet, whose relationship was doomed.
“One soul, one flesh,
one love, one heart, one all?”
The Serpent “hath eaten
and lives”
“one flesh” is also a
“well-known biblical way of expressing the relationship between husband and wife” - Martin Wiggins
What was a key skill mastered by students in Renaissance universities of the 17th century?
Disputation
Where did Giovanni study?
“Bologna” University
Satan intends to incite “revolt /
And disobedience” against God
Annabella’s “fruitful womb” is
evidence of her extra-marital sex, as she holds a “child unborn”
How is Annabella’s womb described to show how her virtue has been tainted?
It is “ploughed up”
“in her cheek
distemper flushing glowed”
Tragedy “openeth
the greatest wounds”
- Michael Neill
