Why Read Paradise Lost?

 John Milton’s Paradise Lost is often recognized as the greatest poem in the English Language. The poem is a powerful masterpiece that Milton hoped would “find” a “fit audience…though few.” (VII, 31) Although it never had a broad, popular “audience,” today, the poem is less read than it should be, which is attributable to less apt or oblivious reading public.

Paradise Lost is the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, but unlike the biblical version in Genesis, 3:1-5 which takes a few minutes to read, Milton’s epic spans ten-thousand lines. Adam and Eve are meant to be the poem’s central subject, but Satan, the luminous Lucifer who was once God’s favorite, is the character who inspires awe in the reader. Milton did not intend for him to be the hero or antihero of the poem, yet the English Romantic poets William Blake, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley certainly saw him as such. Blake thought him to be the poem’s hero in Satan’s bold assertions, and Lord Byron was drawn to Satan’s rebellious spirit—“better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” In his Defense of Poetry, Shelley observed that “Nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed in Paradise Lost.”

In the opening lines, Milton tells us why he composed Paradise Lost

Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man                          
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat. (I, 1-5)

This initial passage proclaims Milton’s profound ambition, which was to “assert eternal providence / And justify the ways of God to man,” (I, 26) makes us think that the poem will begin in the Garden of Eden. Milton has something else in mind and it will be three books before we will meet the “grandparents” of humanity. First, we are introduced to Satan, who dominates the narrative of Books I and II. After rebelling against God’s rule in heaven (told in later books) and being utterly defeated, Satan lies “vanquished” (I, 52) in “floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire.” (I, 77)

He sees his fellow fallen angel, now a devil, Beelzebub, and tells him he neither regrets his rebellion nor laments the horrific suffering he has brought upon himself and the one-third of heaven, the angels who joined his ranks. “Yet not for those, / Nor what the potent victor in his rage / Can inflict, do I repent or change.” (I, 96) A little later in this first speech come words that inspired the Romantic poets and, frankly, so many other readers of this great poem. No force, no matter how powerful, can undermine Satan’s resolve to continue fighting against the “oppressive” foe who has demanded his subservience. In valiant words he exclaims,

                          ...What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power... (I, 105-112)

Traditional Christian teaching and literature does not prepare readers for this depiction of Satan. Rather than a prince of evil or darkness, he seems to have been waging a legitimate revolt against a “…grand foe, / Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy / Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n.” (I, 122-124) Is God simply a tyrant and Satan an angelic freedom fighter? Satan’s third speech contains lines readers most often quoted to argue Satan is a heroic rebel. He claims Hell as is own and asserts his profound psychological freedom:

Receive thy new possessor: one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. (I, 252-255)

This is certainly not the singular description we have of the serpent who deceives Eve in Genesis. Here is a character who is not only undaunted by this tormenting prison but who also believes he can undo control of its effect within his mind. He continues:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n. (I, 261-263)

To make the most of this “horrible destruction” (I, 137) within the imagination is impressive. To transform it to a kingdom over which he can reign is an astonishing act of indomitable dignity. Beelzebub, who already praised Satan, (I, 128-133) responds to this speech by reminding Satan that if he calls to his troops of fallen angels and they will be roused from their stunned condition and “they will soon resume / New courage and revive, though now they lie / Groveling and prostate on yon lake of fire.” (I, 277-280) In the rest of Book I, Satan “comforts” his fallen comrades “with hope yet of regaining Heaven” and tells them lastly of the rumor of a new world and new kind of creature to be created. The devils construct Satan’s Palace, Pandaemonium and the next section of the poem begins in Book II.

As Book II opens, the narrator presents Satan as a royal king whose resilience inspires the fallen angels and the reader:

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show'rs on her kings barbaric peal and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence, and from despair
thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav'n, and by success untaught
His proud imaginations thus displayed.  II, (1-10)

From his throne, Satan addresses his army, assuring their defeat and banishment to Hell cannot destroy them.

"Powers and Dominions, deities of Heav'n,
For since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigor, though oppressed and fall'n,
I give not Heav’n for lost. From this descent
Celestial Virtues rising, will appear
More glorious and more dread that from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate." (II, 11-17) 

His unflagging confidence energizes his army, and he proposes they debate the best way to attack Heav’n and God once more: …“and by what way, / Whether of open war or covert guile, / We now debate: who can advise, may speak.” II, 40-43 A series of speeches follow with one devil calling for “open war,” (II, 51) another for accepting their defeat, and a third suggesting they mine the mineral riches in Hell. Beelzebub steps in and argues that they should send someone in “search of this new world” (of Adam and Eve) created by God and somehow “Seduce them to our party, that their God / May prove their foe, and with repenting hand / Abolish his own work.” (II, 368-370) The devils unanimously agree and Satan volunteers to find the new creation and explore how they might be “Seduced” to the devils “party.” He flies through space, encounters two extraordinary creatures, directed by Chaos toward Eden which he reaches in Book IV.

In Book III, Milton introduces the character of God, whom readers have found rather unappealing. He looks down from heaven, sees Satan flying toward the Garden of Eden with the aim of corrupting Adam and Eve and tells his Son how Satan will succeed:

                                                            ...And now
Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way
Not far off Heav'n, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new-created world,
And man there placed, with purposed to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For man will hearken to glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall
He and his faithless progeny: whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. (III, 86-99)

Why does God argue he is not responsible for protecting Adam and Eve from this powerful adversary? Why does he lecture that he created them free to withstand Satan’s temptation and gave them the freedom to sin. Although free will makes them “Sufficient” and “free,” he created them, and he is omniscient, omnipotence, foresees what is going to happen and could as easily prevent the suffering and death that would cascade through the generations after Adam and Eve transgress as he did Satan’s attempt to overthrow his rule. Did Milton notice that his character comes across as arbitrary, argumentative and unforgivably callous when God tells his son that he has “immutable foreseen” (III, 121) that Adam and Eve would be deceived by Satan? The full speech can be read here. (III, 80-134)

Book IV takes us back to Satan as he approaches earth. The narrator describes Satan as “bold” (IV, 13) and “fearless” (IV, 14) and defines his psychological torment he cannot escape: “The Hell within him, for within him Hell / He brings…” (IV, 20-21) Shortly afterwards, in one of the most interesting scenes in the poem, Satan evokes the reader’s pity as he poignantly laments his crime and reveals his guilt. But first, his pride and anger erupt, and he denounces the sun for its shining brilliance, since it reminds him of former brightness when he was the luminous Lucifer:

O thou that with surpassing glory crowned,
Look'st from thy dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice and add thy name
O Sun, to tell thee I hate thy beams
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down
Warring in Heav'n against Heav'n's matchless King;
Ah wherefore! He deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was... (IV, 32-43)

His ego cannot tolerate this new reality, but the Lucifer that has been eternally transformed by his own actions has lost the brilliance he once emitted. Suddenly, he identifies the flaws, “pride and worse ambition,” that instigated his revolt, feels a pang of guilt, blames himself for freely choosing to revolt, and recognizes he cannot escape his torment:

Nay cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer sems a Heav'n. (IV, 71-78)

(The “thou” above refers to Satan himself.) How different is Satan’s language from the proud speeches in Books I and II. Here, he blames himself for his punishment and “rues” the choice he made in rebelling against God. His torment is excruciating, scorching his body and his mind. That torment makes him wonder that if he were to “submit,” would God’s forgiveness be possible. But his “Disdain,” for “that word” and his “dread of shame / Among the spirits beneath” make doing so impossible. As he wrestles with what he might do, he sinks deeper into despair:

O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
Th' Omnipotent. Ay me, little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan;
While they adore me on the throne of Hell,
With diadem and scepter high advanced
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery; such joy ambition finds. (IV, 79-92)

In Satan’s despair we see the remorse that could lead to contrition and to readmission to heaven. But he does consider how repenting might restore him to his former state:

But say I could repent and could obtain
By act of grace my former state; how soon
Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned submission swore: ease would recant
vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep... (IV, 93-99)

Satan concludes that his pride will never enable him to repent and therefore forgiveness will never be his. He ends his soliloquy with the resolute conviction to pursue his revenge:

So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided Empire with Heav'n's King I hold
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As man ere long, and this new world shall know.

We begin to see the real Satan—the arrogant and prideful angel of Death who finally admits his deep loss of God’s glory. Satan knows he is the embodiment of Hell to which his ego can never accept defeat. His resentment tells him that although he could repent and be readmitted to God’s grace, his “deadly hate” would never allow him to submit. Seeing Satan fully wrapped up in his gloating and despair, it enables us to contrast him with what we realize is God’s goodness even though we may be uncomfortable with his fatherly sternness.