Part of a presentation situating John Milton’s Paradise Lost in a cross-disciplinary, cultural discourse that engenders the Fall as feminine— a discourse that employs Eve as an agent for propelling negative stereotypes of women Aughterson, Kate, ed. Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook: Constructions of Femininity in England. New York: Routledge, 1995. Print. Usher Henderson, Katherine, and Barbara F. McManus. Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985. Print.

1. Pamphlets & Sermons

2. Swetnam presents women both as -easily deceived- “… (Eve) was no sooner made but straightway her mind was set upon mischief, for by her aspiring mind and wanton will she quickly procured man’s fall. And therefore ever since they are and have been a woe unto man and follow the line of their first leader.” (193-4) “ And yet women are easily wooed and soon won, got with an apple and lost with the paring.” (204)

5. Renaissance Women Stereotyped as: seductive shrewish vain chaste nurturing pious