Where does evil come from? Satan, the accuser, is the evil one.
In Job 1: 6, "the satan" (literally, the accuser. Satan is the prosecuting attorney) in God’s court accuses Job of weakness and wrongdoing.Without Satan as God's opponent, God would be in charge of everything. There were no proximate causes; everything was God’s will.A theology that allows possible secondary causes because God is not doing everything allows Him to retain goodness. Blame Satan. For example, God allowed Job’s kids to be killed, but He did not actually do the killing. As the doctrine of Satan continued to develop, he was seen as an independent being, evil and at war with God. Satan is no longer part of God's court.
Suffering comes from Satan and the sinful ways of man. God is perfect and working to overcome evil. God created people with free will in order for us to have a true relationship with him. He allows us to stand or fall.
The background for Milton’s epic is the Judeo-Christian Bible and classical Greek and Roman epics, such as Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid. He also makes extensive use of the medieval epic Inferno by Dante. They both spend a lot of time in Hell. He doesn't use much from the Anglo-Saxon or French backgrounds. He had, however, mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and several other languages. He combines the Biblical account with the "machinery" of Graeco-Roman epics.Machinery. Elements that typically adorn epics, such as supernatural beings, epithets (nicknames), battles, epic similes (elaborate comparisons).
Milton used blank verse in his English epic form, which doesn’t rhyme. Milton allowed God, Jesus, and Adam to represent perfect men and heroes. Satan is also a hero in the poem, though Milton probably didn't mean for him to be.He wrote the poem in 12 books for traditional reasons. Homer's epics had 24 books each. Virgil's had 12. Most epics have either 24, 12, or 6 books because of that tradition.
Milton tried to portray need for submission to hierarchy against the desire for individual freedom (Remember the Great Chain of Being?).
Satan seems more of a hero than God sometimes for various reasons:
Pride is the classic sin from which others flow. It occurs when you put your will before his.
- God has no imperfections or tensions. God's voice when he does speak is the voice of reason. He's logical and dispassionate. He thus seems remote, in contrast to Satan's passions & forceful personality.
- Satan is involved in the action of the epic, God mostly in giving narratives of future history.
- Satan is on stage more, especially in the edited edition in your textbook. The discourses of God & his angels tend to get left out.
- Changing views of right & wrong. Our society stresses freedom & doesn't like submitting to the authority of others. "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" has a more positive ring in our ears than it did in Milton's audience.
- Satan is a tragic figure. He has fallen into ruin from a great height. He especially evokes sympathy among those who are familiar with tragedy.
- Milton himself was ambivilant about the hierarchy. He wrote pamphlets defending Cromwell's execution of King Charles I. He wrote Areopagitica, an early defense of the free press. He wrote in favor of liberalized divorce laws (because he had an unhappy marriage).
Ambition is even worse than pride in Paradise Lost. "Pride and worse Ambition threw me down" (4. 39). Today, we think of ambition as a good thing. We need the ambition to improve our selves. Then, ambition was the desire to get out of the spot that God put you in, to disrupt the divinely-ordained hierarchy.Archangel is the ruler of other angels.
Satan tried to overthrow God, so he got thrown into hell, the bottom of the chain. If he succeeded, it would disrupt the hierarchy and destroy the universe.
Paradise Lost deals with the disruption of hierarchy. Satan would rather reign in hell than serve in Heaven. He was a high angel, but was unhappy to be beneath God.
| Seraphim | Cherubim | Thrones | Dominions | Virtues | Powers | Principalities | Archangels | Angels | Humans |
- Satan over God
- Passion/Reason
- Humors/God
- Wife/Husband
- Animal/Human
Uxorious comes from the Latin word uxorius, meaning a man who allows his wife rule him. By giving in to Eve's nagging, Adam becomes uxorious. They disrupted the natural order (as in the Wife of Bath & Phyllis & Ariltotle).Plot structureIn the traditional epic form, Milton begins by asking his muse to inspire him to write. The Greeks had 9 Muses. Christians sometimes talk about the Tenth Muse, Holy Spirit. Milton also addresses the Holy Spirit as Urania. He is "musing over" the ambition of his people. The Puritans had overthrown Charles I and beheaded him at Commonwealth. By the time he wrote this, Milton was old, blind, and poor and had served time in jail when Charles II, the son of the beheaded Charles I, came back to England and took over the throne.
The Romantic Period later would elevate Milton's Satan. They had a new approach to thinking. It was the rise of the Industrial Revolution, which caused the ideas about ambition to change. The Satanic Hero is a central type in the Romantic Era. He is one who goes too far and falls. He does not go with the flow; he says no.
Felix Culpa is a happy or fortunate fall. Humans ended up being better off because of Jesus. Things are better in the end than the beginning even though the fall was tragic.
Paradise Lost follows a tragic plot structure. In tragedy, the hero's life is one of a rise then a fall. Books 1-6 slowly rise from hell to earth to heaven. Books 7-12 conter around the fall. The first word in 7.1 is "descend," and that is what we do.
We begin in medias res, in the middle of things. This type of beginning is typical of epics, which usually begin with action and later explain how things got to be this way.1. 160God can bring good from evil. This justifies his ways & also shows how a fall (culpa) can in the end be fortunate (felix),1. 192-200An epic simile that shows similarities between the devil and other creatures. At the end of the epic, all of Satan’s devils are turned into snakes. Satan falls from God status to animal status.1. 257refers to Zeus.1. 263 This is one of Satan's great lines.Jesus is Satan’s archenemy. Jesus kicked Satan out of Heaven. They had fought for three days, and fell for nine days. In Paradise Regained, Jesus and Satan face off again, as the temptation of Christ.1. 361ffThe catalogue of heroes is also a standard epic device. In this epic, we get the catalogue of demons.1. 506Stygian and hellish. Sin and Death and Cerebus is a three-headed dog that guards the gate to hell. It let Satan out because Satan brings people back for the dogs to eat. The path to hell leads through chaos down a wide road.1. 590
he above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a Towr; his form had yet not lost
All her Original brightness, nor appear'd
Less then Arch Angel ruind, and th' excess
Of Glory obscur'd: As when the Sun new ris'n
Looks through the Horizontal misty Air
Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds
On half the Nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes Monarchs. Dark'n'd so, yet shon
Above them all th' Arch Angel: but his face
Deep scars of Thunder had intrencht, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under Browes
Of dauntless courage, and considerate Pride
Waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion to behold
The fellows of his crimeThis heroic description of Satan is one of the passages that make us as readers feel sympathy for him. He is not pure evil at this point. He will become more evil as the story progresses, and his form will change. What does he look like at the end?1. 756 Pandemonium = (pan) demons (demonium). It is the castle built by devils."As when the Sun. . . ." is an epic simile or Homeric simile, an extended comparison first made popular in Homer's Iliad.
The demons hold a council in hell. What do they decide to do?What does Satan encounter at the gates of Hell?
What is his connection to them?
What deal do they make?
We see a moral exchange. Sin must be atoned; this is possible if the person submits to God and focuses on morality. Satan can’t escape hell because it is within him. He wants to go back to heaven but refuses to submit. Women are supposed to submit to men because women were made inferior. Eve sinned to obtain knowledge; Adam’s sin was noble - he wanted to share Eve's fate.3. 90ffCentral to the project of theodicy is to exonerate God of any blame for the imperfect condition of the world. Commonly, the power of God is somehow circumscribed, making evil come from some other cause. Thus here, where God grants angels and humans free will, and they fall into sin of their own choice.Another part of theodicy is to support the idea that God is acting to overcome the problems in the world. What action does God plan that will undo the advent of SIN? Who else is involved in his plan?
Accuser. As a scholar of Hebrew, Milton is aware of the original meaning of "ha-satan" - the accuser.4. 20
Tempter. "The tempter" is another popular description of Satan, and one central to the plot of Paradise Lost.He can't really leave hell. He carries it inside him wherever he goes.4. 32ffAnother of Satan's great speeches.4. 75"Pride and worse Ambition threw me downHe regrets his decision but sticks with it.
Warring in Heav'n against Heav'n's matchless King:""Myself am Hell." Just as Queen Elizabeth or King James could say "I am England." The state was embodied in its monarch. But this carries another meaning - he embodies suffering and torment.4. 715Eve is compared to Pandora. She was the 1st woman in Greek mythology. She brought disaster to humanity by opening the jar (or box) that the gods had told her to keep closed.4. 740ffAdam & Eve have sex. It is pure & innocent.
Eve dreams of her temptation & Raphael warns them against Satan. Thus they are without excuse for their fall.
Milton at the half-way point again invokes the muse to help him. Urania ~ Holy Spirit.
In his innocent state, Adam responds to God's providence with the proper awe & gratitude.8. 450ffThe creation of Eve.8. 535Eve has been created inferior to Adam. Milton thus makes her secondary status natural rather than a status that resulted from the fall. Milton's attitudes toward women are negative.8. 610Looking at beauty can lead you to contemplate heavenly Beauty, the ultimate Beauty. This way of thinking comes from Plato.
9. 110 Milton moves up the chain of being in creation from plants to humans.
9. 225
9. 1010 How is sex different now?
9. 1066-1188
What happens to Satan & his minions when he returns to hell?10. 710ff What are the attitudes of Adam and Eve now?
What happens to Adam & Eve?
What promise do they receive?