Comparison between Milton’s Satan’s and Dante’s Lucifer.

In literature, both English and Italian, is very frequent the presence of representatives of evil, demons, among whom the first and most important is Satan, the archangel who led the man to commit the original sin and for this reason is been exiled in Hell by God. Of all the works involving this character the two biggest are definitely the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri and John Milton's Paradise Lost. The medieval Italian comedy shows Lucifer as the personification of evil itself, the end opposite to God ruler of Hell, the place where the souls of sinners of after death. In Milton, he plays the role of the hero and so he is seen as a representation of sin itself, but also as the embodiment of positive values ​​such as perseverance and understanding of his own individuality.

In addition to this first major difference between the two visions of the archangel, other differences emerge within the passages of presentation of the demon inside of the two poems. These differences make it possible to outline the key features of the two authors' cultures.

First is the general mode of description of Satan: while Milton introduces the archangel through a speech, in which the fallen describes himself; Dante offers his devil’s vision. From this first point of disagreement emerges a second difference between the two descriptions. Satan in Paradise Lost brings out his own moral characteristics, highlighting the differences between himself and God and expressing his thoughts about the situation. The Italian narrator, by contrast, merely observes Lucifer and provides only a physical description, intended to personify all that for medieval culture is evil.

Milton then introduces the opinion of the Fallen and his expression of free will and individuality, two values typical of Protestant culture of which the poet is part and that Satan incarnated as positive values in negative characterization. Dante belongs instead to the Catholic religion widespread in medieval and that belonging leads him to the use of allegorical images designed to connote negatively the fallen archangel, avoiding any positive consideration. These allegories are not present in Paradise lost, where there is a wide use of personifications and metaphors; this factor is also due to the time difference between the two compositions. In the Middle Ages, in fact, good and evil were something distinct and incommunicable, while in the English Renaissance the two sides coexist in person who, according to the Protestant culture, has the power to choose which side to take.

Both religions, however, belong to the branch of Christianism and share some basic considerations that emerge within the texts. Both Milton and Dante in fact share the same view of God: the first presents him as the ruler of the sky, even greater than his fellows (the archangels) and source of the understanding what is good and what is evil; the second defines it the emperor, who owns everything and everything is in control. Different is the relationship with God that Satan has in the two cases. In the English version, Satan is aware of being inferior to the creator and of being in a place less than paradise, but he is still an archangel, equal to God as regards the nature of the two entities and, like him, he rules over a domain. Therefore, Satan is a king and an archangel, but remains lower than the Lord. This juxtaposition of two opposites is not even slightly mentioned in Dante's text, in which Lucifer is not nothing like the creator but he is the exact opposite. According to the Puritan culture of Milton, Satan would have some positive talents and he has sinned, since they were used in the wrong way. For the medieval Dante, the king of sinners is not someone who simply sins, but the representation of sin itself, so devoid of merits.

Significant is also the connotation of hell in the two versions of the presentation. In the Divine Comedy, Hell is the abode of Lucifer, it is a cold place and this characteristic is due to the constant movement of the wings of the demon, which cool the river Cocytus. In Paradise Lost, Satan is and remains an archangel, the negative character of his person derives from the dark and devilish place in which the divine will locates him. The relationship is then reversed, as well as is inverted the correspondence sin-sinner in the two streams of thought. Puritanism presupposes the existence of sin, which, if chosen by the person, makes him a sinner. Catholicism assumes the predestined person's nature of sinner, which creates and subsequently results in sin.

The last point of disagreement is the time span in which Satan is at the time of consideration. Milton narrates the events that led to his loss of heaven and the consequent original sin; Dante describes the demon in his contemporaneity. The figure of the Archangel is seen then fell in the moment of its initial condition of hellish and in a moment away from his loss of the heavenly kingdom. In this way the first (Paradise Lost) sees a Satan nostalgic for Paradise and caught in the act of sin, like a man; the second shows him in his full share of the master of hell.

All the various features of the two versions of the description of the devil par excellence also refer to the diversity of the cultures of the two authors: more closed and based on fixed charges that of Dante, open and based on free will and individuality that Milton's.