The Department of English Language and Literature invites you to the following talk:
Prof. Mandy Green (Durham University)
“Trouble in Paradise? Milton’s Adam and Eve”
Date: Thursday, 2 October 2025, 17:30 (reception at 17:00)
Place: EB203
Abstract: It is a rare blessing when two people fall in love at exactly the same moment; even in Paradise – in the first ever love story, according to Genesis – Adam and Eve do not instantly fall happily into each other’s arms. Milton situates the crux of his epic poem, Paradise Lost, not in the martial strife between Satan and God, but in the complexly human dynamics of love between Adam and Eve – amor, not arma, is Milton’s theme.
Bio: Mandy Green is Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham University. Her research interests centre on classical presences in English literature with a particular focus on Ovid and Milton. Her monograph, Milton’s Ovidian Eve, looks at the ways in which Milton appropriates narrative structures, verbal echoes and literary strategies from the Metamorphoses – not least Ovid’s own central metaphor of continuous transformation – to create a subtly evolving portrait of the first woman, Eve.