All about Eve: Woman in Paradise Lost

Abstract

The text is open, its form invites completion. It waits empty for us to enter it, to insert ourselves, to create it through reading. The text is as a mirror which may contain us. It reflects nothing except what we see in it, and we cannot look into it directly unless we see ourself. The epic text also holds a mirror in its folds, and, as the hero looks into the distorted time which is bounded by his poem, he sees or hears the traces of his past and future. In the self-reflexive epic mode, time and space combine to construct the hero once for the reader and once for himself. Aeneas sees himself on the walls of Carthage; Odysseus hides his head and weeps as he hears the poem of himself in his own poem; Beowulf defends himself against Unferth’s assault on his past; while, poised between two traditions, Sir Gawain blushes at the reputation he must keep up.

Twist me, turn me, Show me the elf, I looked in the mirror And saw.… (Traditional)