Intertextuality
The poets (and scholars based on my research) who I will discuss in this essay have chosen to re-examine and transform the traditionthe scholars by studying the texts again in their original languages and contexts, and the creative writers by re-imagining the lives of women in the Bibleto discover the "creative power, dignity, and goodness" of women in their texts. Their work on the character of Eve, the archetypal woman in Western thought, as she appears in the Genesis accounts of creation and in the varied interpretations of her, illustrates the many dimensions of this feminist re-envisioning of women 's place in the Bible and in women 's understanding of their place before God and the rest of humanity. Perhaps the best way to begin this study of Eve is to look at some of the "canonized mythology" of Eve. Scripture scholar Phyllis Trible explains the difficulty that Genesis passages about Eve pose for modern women: "Throughout the ages people have used this text to legitimate patriarchy as the will of God. (Dr. Bullon was telling us this too in our Arthurian Romance) They maintained that it subordinates woman to man in creation, depicts her as his seducer, curses her, and authorizes man to rule over her." The poetry of Eve presents a similar picture. A poem by Ralph Hodgson, published in 1924, gives us a little taste: As the serpent begins his assault on Eve "to get even and / Humble proud heaven"Hodgson asks the reader to Picture that orchard sprite, "Eve, with her body white. Supple and smooth to her Slim finger tips.
Wondering, listening. Listening, wondering. Eve with a berry half-way to her lips." When she succumbs to the serpent 's wiles, the poet cries out: "Oh, had our simple Eve / Seen through the make-believe!" In Hodgson 's poem "Eve" is presented as not merely naive but actually stupid; the Fall is for her no more than a loss of "sweet berries and plums."
Emily Dickinson 's poem, "A Narrow Fellow In The Grass": One answer for Melville might be,
Wondering, listening. Listening, wondering. Eve with a berry half-way to her lips." When she succumbs to the serpent 's wiles, the poet cries out: "Oh, had our simple Eve / Seen through the make-believe!" In Hodgson 's poem "Eve" is presented as not merely naive but actually stupid; the Fall is for her no more than a loss of "sweet berries and plums."
Emily Dickinson 's poem, "A Narrow Fellow In The Grass": One answer for Melville might be,
Cited: Emily Dickinson, poem no. 986, "A narrow Fellow in the Grass," in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), 459-60. Hodgson, Ralph, "Eve," Robert Atwan and Laurance Weider, eds. Chapters into Verse: A Selection of Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible: Genesis through Revelation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 21-22. Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring and Fall". in The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. W. H. Gardner and N.H. MacKenzie (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970), poem 37. Bosman, Leonard. The Meaning and Philosophy of Numbers. London: Rider, 1932. "The Birthmark",