Interpretation in the making: The reading and creation of Genesis in the Rabbis and in Milton

The dissertation compares Genesis Rabbah and John Milton's Paradise Lost, yielding a new approach to the central roles that invention and belief (religious and secular) play in the interpretive and creative processes. Chapter One shows how the dissertation diverges from earlier critical attempts to suggest Milton's historical indebtedness to rabbinic writers by establishing instead methodological and literary analogies between Midrash and Paradise Lost. Following a consideration of the generic aspects of Genesis Rabbah, Chapter Two proceeds to read the Midrash Aggadah on the first three chapters of Genesis, a self-conscious portion of rabbinic writings that deals with the issues of creation and originality. The focus of my remarks is specifically on the theodical nature of Midrash Aggadah. Chapter Three initiates an analysis of Milton's poetical and theodical projects in Paradise Lost, focusing on the methodological questions implicit in the analysis of a poem that is simultaneously a literary artifact and a work of religious interpretation and exposition. The chapter culminates in an analysis of Milton's approach to the language of biblical and poetic accommodation, and how it differs from that of many of his contemporaries. Chapter Four reads Milton's rendition of the Celestial Dialogue in Book III. As part of Milton's representation of the Heavenly Conference, the reader must experience the poem diachronically and, in so doing, enacts the (interpretive) faith and gradual spiritual elevation that serve as the themes of this Book. This chapter also seeks to restore the possibility of allegory to Paradise Lost, a mode that has been rejected by many of Milton's post-Romantic readers. The fifth chapter locates its analysis in Raphael's narration of the seven days of creation in Book VII by posing the following question: How does the poet forge a new literary composition out of the theme of originary creation and its biblical diegesis? This chapter concludes with a meditation on the different versions of the creation of humankind in the poem and argues that Milton's deliberate synthesis of diverse biblical and classical sources in these accounts corresponds to an analogous poetic reclamation of masculine and feminine forms of creativity.