In the following text I will analyse “Better to reign in hell, then serve in heaven”, an extract from John Milton’s religious poem Paradise Lost. 

The plot concerns the story of the biblical figures of Adam, Eve and Lucifer.

Since from the title an intelligent reader understands that the extract is about Satan: the period “to reign in hell” reminds of the famous Fall of Lucifer, the brightest angel of Heaven, who sinned questioning God’s authority and threw in Hell.

The extract, made by one long stanza (it is a poem), is a first-person-speech, with Satan as lyrical I. The speech begins with a rhetorical question: the devil recognises that Hell is a “mournful gloom” differently from Heaven, called “celestial light”. In the question you may notice that Satan is not happy with the place he has to live in, but the following expression will rub out this idea. 

Indeed, Satan goes on with his speech almost facing God, with the expression “Be it so”.

He seems to appreciate Hell, he greets horrors and the infernal world and directly addresses it as their new king.

He recognises himself as free and powerful, and that is why it is “Better to reign in hell, then serve in heaven”.

Despite the religious field of the denotative level, the main themes can be compared to Milton’s time. Indeed, in England there were struggles and clashes between the King and the Parliament. Satan can be compared to the kings who tried to rule as absolute monarchs and the speech may represent their thought. You can notice that Satan’s Fall is due to his Glory and Pride -he can not stand to be lower than someone- as well as absolute kings are slavers than their thirst for power. 

However, it could be easy to get wrong by considering Milton as a supporter of monarchy: he only describes the decline of Men but he does not exalt it. It is useful to remember that Milton also wrote a work called “Tenure of Kings and Magistrates”.

Another theme of the extract is the use of mind: it is by it that men can overcome worries and troubles, because it “can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”, so it directly modifies the space-time categories.