ASSIGNMENT II

Heroic depiction of Satan

Presented to:

Dr. Shruti Singh

 PARADISE LOST

About the Author

John Milton was born in London on December 9,
1608, into a middle-class family.He was the son of
another John Milton, a scrivener (a combination of
lawyer and money lender),who was not only
financially very successful but also a talented musician
and composer. He sent his son to St. Paul’s school
where he learned to write in both Latin and Greek.
Then Milton went to Christ College Cambridge (1625-
32) where he came fourth in his BA and then stayed in
to do his MA. In 1632, Milton came back to Horton in
Buckinghamshire to prepare himself to become a poet,
learning French, Italian and Hebrew and reading classical literature.

At the age of 30, Milton travelled to Italy, where he was already famous for his Latin and
Italian poetry. However he became so concerned about the rising political and religious
turmoil in England that he returned the following year, and in 1641 decided to put poetry
aside and become a freelance commentator on events.

Milton’s chief polemical prose was written in the decades of the 1640s and 1650s, during
the strife between the Church of England and various reformist groups such as the
Puritans and between the monarch and Parliament. Designated the antiepiscopal or
antiprelatical tracts and the anti-monarchical or political tracts, these works advocate a
freedom of conscience and a high degree of civil liberty for humankind against the
various forms of tyranny and oppression, both ecclesiastical and governmental. In line
with his libertarian outlook, Milton wrote Areopagitica (1644), often cited as one of the
most compelling arguments on the freedom of the press.

While Milton’s impact as a prose writer was profound, of equal or greater importance is
his poetry. He referred to his prose works as the achievements of his “left hand.” In 1645
he published his first volume of poetry, Poems of Mr. John Milton , Both English and
Latin, much of which was written before he was twenty years old. The volume manifests
a rising poet, one who has planned his emergence and projected his development in
numerous ways: mastery of ancient and modern languages—Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
Italian; awareness of various traditions in literature; and avowed inclination toward the
vocation of poet.
The symptoms of failing eyesight did not deter Milton , who from an early age read by
candlelight until midnight or later, even while experiencing severe headaches. By 1652 he
was totally blind. The exact cause is unknown. Up to the Restoration he continued to
write in defense of the Protectorate.

One of the central issues of Paradise Lost is the nature of freedom, and it was freedom
that Milton defended all his public life. Milton also defended the freedom of press. He
makes a vivid comparison between books and the fruit of Tree of Knowledge forbidden to
Man in the Garden of Eden.

The most important of Milton’s public writings are political, and they reflect his
increasing involvement in the opposition to King Charles 1 which developed during his
eleven years of tyranny (1629-40).Milton’s important tract OF THE Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates is one of the publications that support the execution of king. When ten years
later Milton was to write Paradise Lost, he gave to Satan the same defense that he
attacked God (the equivalent of Charles 1)in order to give his followers freedom.

Milton went blind and retired in 1663.It took him seven years to complete Paradise Lost.
His other famous works include Samson Agonistes, Paradise Regained, Lycidas, etc.

Heroic Depiction of Satan:

The main idea behind Paradise Lost is the importance of obedience to God. The first
words of the epic poem state that the poem’s main theme will be “Man’s first
Disobedience” and his “Fall from Grace”.

Milton invokes a heavenly muse. The action begins with Satan and his fellow rebel angels
who are chained to a lake of fire in Hell where they have been thrown by God in an
attempt to overthrow him.

Satan, formerly called Lucifer, is the first major character introduced in the poem. He was
once the most beautiful of all angels, and is a tragic figure who famously declares: "Better
to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Following his failed rebellion against God, he is
cast out from Heaven and condemned to Hell. Satan's desire to rebel against his creator
stems from his unwillingness to be subjugated by God and his Son, claiming that angels
are "self-begot, self-raised," and thereby denying God's authority over them as their
creator.

One deciding factor that insinuates his role as the protagonist is that most often a
protagonist is heavily characterized and far better described than the other characters, and
the way the character is written is meant to make him seem more interesting or special to
the reader. For that matter, Satan is both well described and is depicted as being quite
versatile in that he is shown as having the capacity to do evil whilst retaining his
characteristic sympathetic qualities and thus it is this complex and relatable nature that
makes him a likely candidate for the story's overarching protagonist. Satan says “The
mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

The view has been expressed that Satan is the real hero of John Milton’s great epic poem
Paradise Lost, or that Milton permitted Satan to develop into a character far more
appealing than Milton’s theology could have allowed. In the words of Banisalamah,
people of the seventeenth century were encouraged to and inspired by the revolutionary
writings of Milton, who was a Puritan poet, to seek freedom from the king and the Roman
Catholic Church, in order to improve their conditions and live a more pleasant life, and
this is represented by Satan’s revolt against God, a revolt which makes him appear as if
he were a hero in the eyes of some critics and readers. This view originated during the
Romantic age, with its rebellion against all established forms of authority and its
emphasis on the development of personality (whether in the author or in one of his
characters.) It was Blake who expressed this view most emphatically by saying that
Milton was of the devil’s party without knowing it. He expressed this opinion chiefly in
relation to the portrayal of Satan who, according to him, has been depicted as a character
possessing certain grand qualities worthy of the highest admiration. Other romantic critics
supported this view with great enthusiasm.

The most eloquent and balanced expression of the Romantic view has been given by
William Hazlitt. Hazlitt (1818) shows both the strength and the limitations of this view,
and according to him, Satan is the most heroic subject that was ever chosen for a poem;
and the execution is as perfect as the design is lofty. In the poem, Satan was endowed
with certain attributes which are worthy of epic heroes, and which make him a
sympathetic, almost tragic character.

The very descriptions of Satan’s physical dimensions and the size of the tools he carries
mark him out as a kind of hero. His limbs are long and large; his bulk is as huge as that of
the Titan who fought against Jove or that of Leviathan which God of all His works
created hugest that swim the ocean stream. He has a mighty stature so that, when he rises,
the flames on both sides of him are driven backward and roll in billows. He carries a
ponderous, massy, and large shield on his shoulder. This shield is compared to the moon
as seen through a telescope. His spear is so big that the tallest pine tree would be but a
wand by comparison, etc. This description may be valid if given the fact that Satan’s
character is the most well described in the epic. Combined to these great qualities, Satan
was the first of created beings who, for endeavouring to be equal with the highest and to
divide the empire of Heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to Hell. His aim was no
less than the throne of the universe. His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment
was the greatest, but not so his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his sufferings.
Slotkin is also of the view that "God's punishments turn their victims into allegories of
their own crimes", a notion confirmed by Satan's famous assertion "Myself am Hell.” His
strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body. His power of action and of
suffering was equal. He was the greatest power that was ever overthrown, with the
strongest will left to resist or to endure. He was baffled, not confounded. He still stood
like a tower, proudly eminent in shape and gesture. An outcast from Heaven, Hell
trembles beneath his feet; Sin and Death are at his heels, and mankind are his easy prey.
Milton’s has rightly said in Book I:

All is not lost; the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what else is not to be overcome.
The above words indicate that the sense of Satan’s punishment seems lost in the
magnitude of it; the loss of infinite happiness to himself is compensated in thought, by
the power of inflicting infinite misery on others. Yet Satan is not the principle of
malignity, or of the abstract love of evil, but of the abstract love of power, or pride, of
self-will personified. His love of power and contempt for suffering is never once relaxed
from the highest pitch of intensity-“After such a conflict as his, and such a defeat, to
retreat in order to rally, to make terms, to exist at all, is something; but he does more than
this-he found a new empire in Hell, and from it conquers this new world, wither he bends
his undaunted flight.” The poet has not in all this given us a mere shadowy outline; the
strength is equal to the magnitude of the conception. Wherever the figure of Satan is
introduced, whether he walks or flies, it is illustrated with the most striking and
appropriate images: so that we see it always before us, gigantic, irregular, portentous,
uneasy, and disturbed- but dazzling in its faded splendor, the clouded ruins of a god.
Milton was too magnanimous and opens an antagonist to support his argument by the
bye-tricks of a hump and cloven feet. He relied on the justice of his cause, and did not
scruple to give the devil his due. Some persons may think that he has carried his liberality
too far, and injured the cause he professed to espouse by making him the chief person in
his poem. Considering the nature of his subject, he would be equally in danger of running
into this fault, from his faith in religion, and his love of rebellion; and perhaps each of
these motives had its full share in determining the choice of his subject. In the ancient
epic the nominal hero seems to be greatly overshadowed by a character with whom we
were not intended to sympathize. The common fallacy begins with a basic
misunderstanding of the beginning of Paradise Lost, namely, Satan’s first speech
delivered as he surveys his followers rolling in the fiery gulf, confounded through
immortal. "Our response to this speech is prepared for through the picture of the
archangel torn by wholly evil passions" claimed Murray (1967: 50). But even if there
were no such preparation, the speech itself in every line should arouse horror and
repulsion. It is a dramatic revelation of nothing but egoistic pride and passion, of
complete spiritual blindness. The "potent victor in his rage" is blind and blasphemous
description of God. Nothing that the "victor" can inflict will make Satan "repent or
change." This phrase is a rejection of all Christian teaching. Satan’s "injured merit" is a
figment of his own egoism, quite the opposite of the real and selfless merit of Christ.
Satan sees only a conflict between himself, the world conqueror, and a temporarily
superior force; he cannot see that it is a conflict between evil and good. In short, it is seen
that defiance is splendid regardless of what is defied. There is no conflict here (in this
first speech of Satan) between Milton’s intention and the result, and there is none later,
even when Milton leaves dramatic speech to create its own effect. Those who admire the
rebel of the first speech also admire him when he declares:

Here at last
We shall be free …
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
But to those who understand and realize Milton’s principles, which are everywhere made
clear, such words show how far Satan is from understanding true liberty. The tyrant of
Milton’s poem, as some have seen, is not God but Satan.

Of course, Satan has heroic qualities. He is brave, strong, generous, loyal, prudent,
temperate, and self-sacrificing. Also Satan has heroic virtues and possesses the emotional
advantage of fighting against odds. The figure of Satan has always fascinated readers of
Paradise Lost. Some have claimed him as the secret hero of the story. But actually an
adversary of God had to be massive dramatic stature, and it was a triumph that Milton
succeeded in drawing him to such a scale. It has been the practice of all epic poets to
select someone personage, whom they distinguish above all the rest, and make the hero of
the tale. This is considered essential to epic composition, and is attended with several
advantages. It renders the unity of the subject more sensible, when there is one principal
figure, to which as to a center, all the rest refer. Blake made the following observation
regarding Paradise Lost: "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of angels and
at liberty when of devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the devil’s party
without knowing it.” In Blake’s opinion, Satan was a symbol of desire, energy, and the
vital creative force which enable man to live most fully. Certainly the conventional
Heaven and rationalizing God of Paradise Lost are pale and unconvincing when
compared to the descriptions of Hell and the tremendous energy and courage of Satan.
Satan has been imagined and described in this poem with a wealth of vivid detail which
no other character in it can equal. Satan is, by any standards, a character of epic stature.
Satan may be perverse, but his desire for revenge gives him energy, and his energy makes
him exciting and interesting. He has all the attributes of an epic hero and all the attraction.
Milton’s devil is superhuman, but he also shows the full range of human characteristics.

In depicting him, Milton departed from the crude tradition of earlier religious epics and
seems to have adopted ideas from the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. Satan is proud, of
course. But beneath this pride lies a tormenting sense of despair. This despair overwhelms
him until at last only the desire for revenge reigns supreme in his nature. In Book IV, he
experiences "troubled thoughts" for:
 Within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place. No conscience wakes despair
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be. (20-25).
Thus we see that Satan is, in spite of having some heroic qualities of courage and
prudence is still a tyrant. His character looks appealing due to its massive dramatic stature
and Milton has used all of his dramatic and poetic powers for the portrayal of Satan that
creates a perception of Satan being a Hero in Paradise Lost.