JOHN MILTON - PARADISE LOST - SATAN'S SPEECH - Notes

Right from the start the intelligent reader cannot help realize there is a contrast pervading the whole extract.

Darkness and light are juxtaposed to better put in focus the different state of the soul when in Hell and Paradise.

The extract is organized on the opposition of such two semantic fields mainly rendered with the Latinate words that magnify God's power, sanctity and perfection. Satan himself is aware of this, as the rhetorical question in the opening lines very clearly illustrates.

The settings are symbolical of the different condition of the soul as one can immediately understand from the nostalgic tone of the expression "farewell happy fields, where joy forever dwells".

The frequent use of an exclamative syntax brings emotions to surface, at the same time introducing the great dilemma of a proud and ambitious mind like the one of the epic hero. The opposition "to reign" against "to serve" brings the inner conflict of the hero to the forefront.

Satan is fighting with himself because he is a looser. He has fought to be what he really is - in the narrator's word- "the lost arch angel".

The narrator celebrates the deeds of a hero, which in the present text has become an anti-hero, a looser. One who is not an archangel anymore, therefore he must keep furthest from him (God).

Indeed God's presence would underline the distance between perfection and sin, but at the same time the reader is made share Satan's emotions, his desperate pride and therefore he seems to embody all of human weaknesses. The mind is the only weapon he can make use of. He sounds obstinate, ha is not ready to change his mind. He cannot bear to be "less than him". Satan is completely conscious that he will never succeed in feeling free if he finds himself close to God ("here at least, we shall be free").

Next to God he will not feel secure ("here we may reign secure") therefore the intelligent reader can now perfectly understand that the hero's characterization is expressed clearly and straightforward by his thoughts, ambitious as well as his frustrations, that have nothing heavenly, but they are totally mortal. Thus underlining Satan's humanity.

Probably John Milton had not considered how fascinating his devilish figure might result. As well as the human being when he/she feels alone - as Satan's himself might feel - he needs to be reassured by the group belonging to an association, thus gaining an apparent sense of belonging, exactly like the one Satan highlights: "The associates and co-partners of our loss".

What a tragic figure! One suitable to tragedy and loss, ready to exchange "an oblivious pool" provided ha can reign an "unhappy mansion". Satan's a fighter, but, differently from Beowulf, with his "rallied arms", he is unable to conquer Paradise. Definitely he lost the match, this explains why he is perfectly in line with the tragic figure of an epic hero. And what makes him an epic figure is justly and only the language he speaks because any poetry whatsoever is made of language and characters and heroes are language use, language in action, and just this explains why John Milton is, after Shakespeare, the greatest poet of English literature.