Satan: difference between Dante’s Divina Commedia and Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Satan, also known as Lucifer, was formerly the Angel of Light and once tried to usurp the power of God. As punishment, God banishes Satan out of Heaven to an eternity in Hell. He is an important character both in Divina Commedia and Paradise Lost. In both poem Satan embodies the figure of the rebel against the authority: God. He is the enemy of God and men, because he distorted and became 'wicked', opposing to the plans of God.

However between the two poems, there are some difference in Satan's characterization.

Satan is the main character of Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton represents Satan as a being ambitious and proud that challenges God's “Almighty” and wages war against heaven. God is not denoted as a tyrannical creator who used his power to subdue the rebel angel. Satan himself admits that God is the source of justice and he must live in Hell if he decided so. However Satan is described as a powerful being: his force is pointed out by the sentence “in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”.
Milton decides not to describe Satan physically appearance. The only physical characterization is related to his angelic essence: the reader may imagine Satan as winged man. Milton chooses to describehis behavior. He is connoted as “the lost Arch Angel”, that outlines he is a modern hero: he is a strong being (he is an angel) who lost a battle following his values of freedom and his needs of power. Satan is a loser who is able to accept his lost. His awareness of God's justice and power is conveyed by the sentence “Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven”. The sentence “we shall be free” conveys Satan's necessity of freedom. Satan can satisfy such necessity ruling as a king in hell. He seems to be a dynamic character who evolves during the narration and passes trough the battle against God, the fall in Hell and the acceptation of his destiny. Hell itself is denoted as a reign in which Satan is the king.

On the other hand, in Dante’s Inferno, Satan is portrayed as a giant demon at the center of Hell. Lucifer is a static character, trapped into a frosted lake and that’s why he is devoid of real activity and vitality being in the darkness, in the dead center of the earth. Dante illustrates Satan with grotesque physical attributes. Satan has three faces and affixed under each chin are pairs of wings. As Satan beats his wings, he creates a cold wind which continues to freeze the ice surrounding him. Dante's Lucifer has lost every angelic quality: he is not connoted as a “lost angel” but as a demon, an evil spirit who lives in Hell showing only his strength not his supremacy. Even his wings have nothing to do with an angel: they are featherless and they look like the wings of a bat. Lucifer's personality is conveyed by a physical description: his three faces which recall the Trinidad are colored with colors spreading weakness and rudeness. God is represented as a rude ruled who uses his illimitate strength to fight Evil and to make Lucifer suffer. Lucifer does not seem to accept God's punishment unlike Milton's Satan.