Epic social networks and Eve's centrality in Milton's Paradise Lost

摘要

In this article, we analyze the social networks of Paradise Lost at multiple scales of analysis: from the whole poem, down to the level of the individual book and character, and also through quantitative analysis of social network analysis metrics, to understand from multiple angles how network structure can inflect the plot and the effects of relationships between characters. In the case of Eve, our multiscaled analysis reveals her complex role binding together her social world in ways not previously considered. Only through examining the network do we see that Milton has placed her at the very center of the human universe, providing the primary connection between the reader and the world of God. This example shows promise that our multiscaled network analysis can come to important conclusions about the role of gender in a text, and the method can be expanded outward to come to conclusions about other social identities that likewise remain largely overlooked in current implementations of digital humanities scholarship.