Textuality » 4A Interacting
Better to Reign in Hell, Than Serve in Heav’n (lines 1-11)
Considering the title, the reader thinks the person who pronounces the statement to be very proud.
The text presents a direct speech; the person who speaks is named as “the lost Arch Angel”, so the reader can imagine the setting of the narration and understand who the character is.
The first line presents ah anaphor of the demonstrative pronoun “this”, introducing substantives that refer to a land. The use of a geographical lexis is peculiar of the period when the poem is written, because of the voyages and discovers. The anaphor and the repetition of sound “th” continues in the following lines and reminds obsessively at the place that Satan is describing.
In lines 3 and 4 we find a double contrast between “gloom” and “light”, “this” and “that”, which reminds at the Paradise, where the protagonist will no more live. There are other elements that convey the contrast: the use of sense impression, for example. The senses the poet appeals to are sight (“celestial light”, “gloom”) and hearing (“mournful”).
The most evident contrast takes place in lines 8-12, where Satan says goodbye to Heaven using metaphors and adjectives to describe both it and Hell.