Presumably not long after his arrival in Rome, Raphael drew a figure of Lucretia (Figure 7.1).1 The drawing is a telling example of the transformation of her reception. After 1500, the Roman heroine of freedom and chastity became a pin-up model.2 Raphael skillfully anticipates the requirements of the genre. Her torn attire follows the curves of her body, and a dysfunctional fold underscores her genitalia. Her hair is tied but slightly disheveled. The theatrical gesture of the left arm conveniently reveals her bare breast. The dagger in her right-hand changes into an overt phallic reference from a mortal instrument. Lucretia has just been raped and her suicide is imminent, yet the painter opts for a voyeuristic presentation of her body. The narrative context and physical signs of violence are retained inasmuch as they support this sanitized scenario.

Paradise Lost is constructed almost entirely of men talking to other men. Depending heavily on conversation and social discourse, Milton's epic takes the ideology of conversation in his culture seriously. Employing conversation to create social rank and hierarchy, while also using it to suggest homosocial pleasure and erotic attraction, Paradise Lost makes Adam, Raphael, the Son, Eve, and Satan into talkers who make power while they make desire. By linking conversation itself to the poem's hierarchies and hegemonic superstructures, this chapter argues that small talk and social discourse are key levers of authority-making in the poem and in early modern England.