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In literary discourse from the Genesis creation myth through John Milton's Paradise Lost and beyond, Eve has been patriarchally considered to be the bringer of Sin and Death into the world. In Paradise Lost Eve is depicted as deceiving Adam into the Fall by way of the Serpent. Paradise Lost creates a Miltonic command that helps to further blame Woman for Sin and Death. Milton's poem is based on the Genesis creation myth written by Canaanite authors. In this myth the Canaanite authors wished to rid the world of Goddess worship and, by humanizing Eve, they successfully obliterate that form of worship. As a result of this obliteration of the Goddess, Eve, as a humanized form of the ancient Goddess Asherah, remains unredeemed for her sin and forever held to blame. Throughout what Michel Foucault calls the archive, or discourse in which power resides, Eve/Woman continues to be seen by patriarchal discourse as to blame for the Fall. There has never been a successful redemption for Eve in the archive. Although Samuel Richardson's Clarissa has been suggested as a successful redeemer of Eve, Clarissa's blatant will to death and, therefore, will to power precludes a successful redemption of Eve. The successful Redemption of Eve comes in Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. By way of Tess's Goddess stature and her self-sacrifice at the end of the novel she successfully effects a redemption of Eve/Woman. As Goddess, Tess enters a state of otherwise than being in the intertext and becomes the Supernatural narrator who narrates both her own story and the unsaid story of the Goddess in the mythic narrative. By way of this otherwise than being as the Supernatural narrator, Tess takes on Eve's blame and intertextually subverts the Miltonic command by narrating the Goddess's prehistorical purity. As a result, then, Eve is redeemed and the Goddess's unsaid story is reinstated in the mythic narrative.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 1999. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 242-256).

This thesis examines the types of creation imagery used in the Psalms, looking at the historical and cultural influences that affected the Old Testament concepts encapsulated in this Psalmody, and at how traditional creation hymnody has incorporated and modified these concepts. The first chapter examines creation psalmody and argues that there is an overall inclusiveness to be found in such Psalms, where God is viewed as working through the whole of creation and that such Psalms are generally less anthropocentric than some other Biblical texts. This immanent approach is particularly evident through the Old Testament concept of Creator Spirit. Creation hymns are discussed in the three chapters that follow, focusing firstly on hymns of seed-time and harvest, secondly on hymns of the Holy Spirit, and thirdly on hymns with a christological perspective that deal with the main Christian Festivals around Christmas and Easter. In examining rogation-tide hymns and May Day carols, the seedtime and harvest chapter finds many similarities to the images used in creation psalmody, as well as imagery from the old traditional May Day festivals which pre-date Christianity in Britain but which contain a similar kind of natural spirituality to the Old Testament concepts of Creator Spirit. The Harvest Festival hymns, on the other hand, tend to take a more anthropocentric approach, but nevertheless do contain some of the immanent approaches from the Old Testament, in particular the Hebrew Harvest Festival. Chapter 3 examines hymns of the Holy Spirit, and I argue that it is in these hymns that we can find a more fully developed immanent type of theology. Chapter 4 looks at the christological perspectives to the natural world to be found in traditional hymnody, examining in more detail the areas of transcendence and immanence and the implications of the inevitable anthropocentric viewpoint to be found in these texts. I argue in this chapter that it is possible to take a wider and more contemporary theological interpretation of this type of hymnody, and that by doing this we find these hymns amenable to a more inclusive approach to creation as a whole. The thesis concludes by considering the implications of this analysis for worship in the twenty first century.

This thesis explores the relationship between Creation and the saints Cuthbert and Guthlac in their Anglo-Latin and Old English vitae. It argues that this relationship is best understood through received theological exegesis concerning Creation's present state in the postlapsarian world. The exegesis has its foundation in Augustine's interpretations of the Genesis narrative, though it enters the textual tradition of the vitae via an adapted portion of De Genesi contra Manichaeos in Bede's metrical Vita Sancti Cuthberti (VCM). Both Augustine and Bede argue, with slight differences, that fallen Creation can be restored into prelapsarian harmony with humanity by way of sanctity. Each individual vita engages with this understanding of the Fall in distinct, though ultimately interrelated, ways, and the chapters of this thesis will therefore explore each text individually. Chapter 1 argues that the anonymous Vita Sancti Cuthberti (VCA) unites Cuthbert's ability to restore Creation with the theme of monastic obedience, linking the ordering of a monastery to the restoration of prelapsarian harmony. The VCA also seeks to create sites for potential lay pilgrimage in the landscapes of Farne and Lindisfarne by highlighting the present efficacy of Cuthbert's miracles. Chapter 2 argues that Bede's VCM not only reveals his early attempt to fashion Cuthbert into the primary saint for Britain, via a focus on Cuthbert's obedience to the Divine Office, but also that the restoration of Creation functions as a ruminative tool. Chapter 3 argues that Bede transforms the nature of Cuthbert's sanctity in his prose Vita Sancti Cuthberti (VCP) from static to developmental, influenced by the Evagrian Vita Antonii, and that Creation is adapted to function as the impetus for, and evidence of, Cuthbert's progression. Chapter 4 argues that Felix's Vita Sancti Guthlaci (VSG) unites the development of Guthlac with a physically delineated Creation, and that the restoration of Creation is elevated to an even greater degree here than in Bede's hagiography. Chapter 5 argues that the author of the Old English Prose Guthlac (OEPG) grounds his vita by utilizing a landscape lexis shared with contemporary boundary clauses, so that here the relationship between the saint and Creation has greater force; it further argues that Guthlac A uniquely connects Guthlac with the doctrine of replacement, consolidating links between his arrival to the eremitic space and the restoration of prelapsarian Eden.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität Hamburg, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-212).