"Imperial Adam"

Poem Review # 60522

Gender and Sexuality
Literature > English
Literature > Poetry

"Imperial Adam"

An examination of A.D. Hope's poem, "Imperial Adam," discussing the biblical Eve against John Milton's ethical implications.

1,985 words () | 12 sources | MLA | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

A. D. Hope, for decades the grand old man of Australian poets, was
known as the best seventeenth century poet still writing, in part because his poetry is steeped in conventional English verse, and in part, because he appropriates the mythic and erotic themes of his predecessors. This paper shows that of Hope's erotic poetry, "Imperial Adam" ranks first, even though the last, disturbing line jolts the reader and the genre. The Old Testament says only that "Adam knew Eve," and poets as illustrious as John Milton have tried to dilate that laconic report into a comparative literary significance. Milton, a religionist and theological scholar, colored the first human sexual encounter so powerfully that he created a new orthodoxy about it. This paper shows how "Imperial Adam" counters the Miltonic version with unparalleled physicality; angels and theology disappear and Eve discloses shameless ringlets and pubic hair.

From the Paper:

"One needs to keep in mind, as Hart insists, that interpreting poetic language presents pitfalls and perceptions not found in other genres. In "Imperial Adam," for example, Eve seems tumid not from innocence but from anticipation. Her mind has fallen. Hart suggests that she may be "insidious and deceitful" at the outset, capable of communing with snakes and worshiping fruit. If the poem falters, he argues, it is because Hope's satire of medieval theology and complementary literary works is overdone (79). The question of misogyny brings up two points. The first point is whether it derails an offended reader from the poem as a whole. The second point is whether the critical practice of apologizing for precursor writers is material to reading an autotelic poem. A. D. Hope and John Milton need no rehabilitation. Hope's overtly erotic poems, like "The Countess of Pembroke's Dream" and "Teaser Rams" bear a closer resemblance to John Donne's "Elegies" than to a few passages in Paradise Lost. Like W. B. Yeats, Hope wrote a number of his sexual poems at an age when most men have retired."