Adam to Eve: "You are the sunshine of my life."

DWill · Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:36 pm

I think it was Robert Tulip who suggested songs for the rock opera of PL or for the movie soundtrack. Cream's "In the Sunshine of Your Love" was his suggestion. Remember (you have to be of a certain age) the Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders' song, "The Game of Love"?

Well, it started long ago in the Garden of Eden
When Adam said to Eve, "Baby, you're for me!"

And there are innumerable songs we could consider to show Adam's smittenness with Eve. There is a serious point to this! Everyone knows that over the ages poor Eve has borne the brunt of the blame for getting us tossed out of a really nice place to live. But what about Adam? He also ate the fruit (presumably if he had refused he might have stayed). The Genesis story says very little about Adam's culpability, but over the centuries a tradition emerged that tagged Adam with the sin of uxoriousness (from Latin, uxor, for wife, meaning an "effeminate" yielding to a wife's wishes). As Milton works his expansion of the Genesis story, he makes uxoriousness Adam's central flaw, so that by the end he can show Adam as being at least as culpable as Eve. This is essentially the point made in the article ""From man's effeminate slackness it begins": Uxoriousness and the Expansion of Genesis in John Milton's Paradise Lost."
http://www.literatureclassics.com/ancie ... inate.html. It's not long and I recommend it.

Eve can't catch a break. Adam's fault depends on her innate inferiority to the male. At this point in our reading, I don't think we've seen anything to hint that Milton will be taking this direction (i.e., blaming Adam for forgetting that Eve is not to be listened to). It seems to me, at least, that Adam's crooning over Eve occurs without comment from Milton, as though he is celebrating their devotion as the ideal relationship. But we might be realizing later on that this is his way of foreshadowing what becomes a crucial obstacle for Adam. Adam lets his heart rule his mind, a lapse that was much more serious, probably, to Milton than it is to us today. Reason was truly next to Godliness in Milton's thinking.

Saffron · Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:51 pm

Here is the link that goes to DWill's post -- for some reason it will not work from the link he provided.

www.literatureclassics.com/ancientpaths/effiminate.html

Robert Tulip · Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:58 pm

Uxorious is a good word for Stevie Wonder's You are the Sunshine of My Life. Adam is a wimp.


	Quote: You are the sunshine of my life Thats why Ill always be around, You are the apple of my eye, Forever youll stay in my heart I feel like this is the beginning, Though Ive loved you for a million years, And if I thought our love was ending, Id find myself drowning in my own tears. You are the sunshine of my life, Thats why Ill always stay around, You are the apple of my eye, Forever youll stay in my heart, You must have known that I was lonely, Because you came to my rescue, And I know that this must be heaven, How could so much love be inside of you? You are the sunshine of my life, yeah, Thats why Ill always stay around, You are the apple of my eye, Forever youll stay in my heart. (background) love has joined us, Love has joined us, Lets think sweet love.

And what about Stop in the Name of Love by Diana Ross - revised for Adam to sing when Eve is planning her dalliance with the snake?


	Quote: Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Baby, baby Im aware of where you go Each time you leave my door I watch you walk down the street Knowing your other love youll meet But this time before you run to her Leaving me alone and hurt (think it over) after Ive been good to you ? (think it over) after Ive been sweet to you ? Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Think it over Think it over Ive known of your Your secluded nights Ive even seen her Maybe once or twice But is her sweet expression Worth more than my love and affection ? But this time before you leave my arms And rush of to her charms (think it over) havent I been good to you ? (think it over) havent I been sweet to you ? Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Think it over Think it over Ive tried so hard, hard to be patient Hoping youd stop this infatuation But each time you are together Im so afraid Ill be losing you forever Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Stop! in the name of love Before you break my heart Baby, think it over Think it over, baby Ooh, think it over baby...

DWill · Wed Feb 18, 2009 7:58 am

As you illustrate, Robert, there are countless songs from popular culture that we could use to express Adam being ga-ga over Eve. There are fewer, from the distaff side, we could find to express the kind of "mindless" devotion Eve has for Adam.

I've got to sympathize with Adam, though. He's like a pioneer sod-buster on the plains 150 years ago who finally gets the mail-order bride he's been waiting for. Eve is lucky, though to end up in far better circumstances.

I suppose this being head over heels in love/ I can't live without you stuff originated with the courtly love tradition in the Middle Ages.

Saffron · Wed Feb 18, 2009 12:34 pm


	DWill wrote: I suppose this being head over heels in love/ I can't live without you stuff originated with the courtly love tradition in the Middle Ages.

I think it goes further back than that, all the way to human beginnings. I really think it is biology at work -- hormones. I would think strong attachment would have great advantages to survival and procreation (if you think about love is what makes human life possible). I know that when I think about the times I have felt a head over heals kind of love, it is very much a somatic experience. My head is not really involved. My mind goes rather blank. Most of what I associate with falling in love are the sensations in my body -- from weak knees (no kidding -- it's the muscles relaxing) to a warm tingling feeling in my body. It actually feels nice to be near the person. And it seem to me the head over heals feeling is akin to feeling hungry. I think Milton is describing elemental love, pure love that is untainted by culture -- before the fall makes sex part of original sin.

There is evidence of romantic of love in much earlier than medieval literature. What come immediately to mind is the early literature from China. In fact, the very first novel ever written was a tale of romance.

"The Tale of Genji is considered to be the world's first full-length novel. It was written by a noblewoman named Murasaki Shikibu in the early eleventh century.....The hero of this 54-chapter novel, regarded as a masterpiece of Japan's cultural tradition, is a handsome aristocrat named Hikaru Genji. The novel describes the life of Genji and his many romances against the backdrop of Japan's court society."

DWill · Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:34 am


	Saffron wrote: I think it goes further back than that, all the way to human beginnings. I really think it is biology at work -- hormones. I would think strong attachment would have great advantages to survival and procreation (if you think about love is what makes human life possible). I know that when I think about the times I have felt a head over heals kind of love, it is very much a somatic experience. My head is not really involved. My mind goes rather blank. Most of what I associate with falling in love are the sensations in my body -- from weak knees (no kidding -- it's the muscles relaxing) to a warm tingling feeling in my body. It actually feels nice to be near the person. And it seem to me the head over heals feeling is akin to feeling hungry. I think Milton is describing elemental love, pure love that is untainted by culture -- before the fall makes sex part of original sin.

Yes, I had thought my statement might be open to objection. The whole area of romantic love would make a good topic for Booktalk! (And almost as soon as I've said this, you've got some candidate books in mind!) What I'm talking about most specifically is the "literary" representation of love relationships, especially this aspect of love as a fever, as insanity, as a religious experience. Of course, I think about this from the male side, bushy-bearded fellow that I am. I wonder whether, before the Middle Ages, we see guys confessing their loss of rationality over fair Rosamund. It's not that I doubt the strength of love and its utility in evolution. I just wonder if love itself has evolved over the ages, on a scale of romanticism. I even think that as women's status becomes a bit better, romantic love might tend to become more possible. Even if we don't think highly of women's status in the Middle Ages, it was probably an improvement from ancient times. Don't know, just guessin'. Do you think it could be that the feelings you experience could be at least in part socially permitted (not the right word) ? Maybe women wouldn't have been able to have those back in Homer's day.

Now as far as J. Milton is concerned, there was sex in Eden. But I think that is as far as he will go. I think it might be a toned-down, "chaste" sex, not what we'd call passionate sex. Obviously we don't know for sure, because Milton flips to the next scene as A & E lie in bed. But here is a passage that might tell us what Milton thought about prelapsarian sex, from Book V:

Mean while at Table Eve
Ministerd naked, and thir flowing cups
With pleasant liquors crown'd: O innocence [ 445 ]
Deserving Paradise! if ever, then,
Then had the Sons of God excuse to have bin
Enamour'd at that sight; but in those hearts
Love unlibidinous reign'd, nor jealousie
Was understood, the injur'd Lovers Hell

"Love unlibidinous reigned"--not so here, buddy! This is in line with my view of Eden as the unevolved world. The evolutionary mechansm of libido was not needed, since animals were created at once by God. Sex as we know it did not exist. An interesting challenge for the movie, but of course I would expect that ticket sales will determine the manner in which the couple has sex.

Saffron · Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:08 am

DWill:


	Quote: Now as far as J. Milton is concerned, there was sex in Eden. But I think that is as far as he will go. I think it might be a toned-down, "chaste" sex, not what we'd call passionate sex..... "Love unlibidinous reigned"--not so here, buddy! This is in line with my view of Eden as the unevolved world. The evolutionary mechansm of libido was not needed, since animals were created at once by God. Sex as we know it did not exist. An interesting challenge for the movie, but of course I would expect that ticket sales will determine the manner in which the couple has sex.

Hmmm, thinking about your post -- You make a good case that Milton had some other version of sex in mind for A & E; unknown to post fall humans. But what on earth could "chaste sex" be??? I definitely think this poses a problem for your movie! I'm going to have to keep thinking about this one -- proto-humans and proto-sex?!

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