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'Nor Turnd I Weene': Paradise Lost And Pre-Lapsarian Sexuality, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Articles and Research

Generations of Milton scholars have agreed that Para dise Lost asserts a genital conjugality between Adam and Eve prior to the Fall. Critical consensus has been so extensive that Adam and Eve's sexual intimacy is a veritable non-question in Milton criticism. For this reason, few Miltonists have analyzed the physical specifics of Adam and Eve's relationship... Turner claims from the outset that "Milton . . . insists on a full sexual life for the unfallen Adam and Eve--bringing it to life as fully as his poetic resources allow"... Rather than argue for Adam and Eve's pre-lapsarian sexuality (establishing that the …