MY argument is not that Paradise Lost is the production of a biblical literalist; we well know that, amidst many bits of scripture, there are a very great number of extra-scriptural lines. Yet if we compare Paradise Lost with Lucy Hutchinson's Genesis poem, Order and Disorder, we see in a new way the truth of the obvious. That can be best effected if we consider “conversation” in the two poems, and that in two senses—an ordinary understanding that conversers will listen to and respond to the words of others, and one contemporary with Milton and Hutchinson. OED defines an obsolete sense of “conversation” as “manner of conducting oneself in the world or in society; behavior, mode or course of life.” It was frequently so used in obituaries.

Order and Disorder shows a clear example of this sense of the word; in canto 6 we read that Enoch was

While he no doubt adored God verbally, that does not seem all the word points to. Thus, a bit later,