01491nas a2200133 4500008004100000245009600041210006900137260001200206300001100218490000800229520099200237100001501229856011301244 2013 eng d00aCome Be My Love: The Song of Songs, Paradise Lost, and the Tradition of the Invitation Poem0 aCome Be My Love The Song of Songs Paradise Lost and the Traditio c03/2013 a373-850 v1283 a
The invitation poem, in which the beloved is urged to come away to an idealized place, is among the most enduring genres of European love poetry. The tradition begins with the biblical Song of Songs, which sets several important precedents: a dialogic framework, a close association of lover and landscape, and a sense of love as exile. Medieval and Renaissance invitation poems follow the Song of Songs but shift its emphases toward monologue, materialism, and importunity. Milton thus inherits a dual tradition of invitational poetry, both aspects of which figure prominently in Paradise Lost. Recognizing the traditional features of the genre therefore illuminates significant moments in the epic, including, notably, Eve’s final speech. The invitational tropes in this passage reveal how Eve reconceives of exile as homecoming and how she reestablishes a sense of radical mutuality with Adam by completing a dialogue that began before the Fall. (EG)
1 aGray, Erik uhttps://genreacrossborders.org/biblio/come-be-my-love-song-songs-paradise-lost-and-tradition-invitation-poem