John Milton, Paradise Lost, Satan’s speech analysis.

The description of Satan in analysis comes from the epic poem Paradise Lost written by John Milton in 1667. Milton is an English writer, poet, philosopher, essayist, public official and theologian. Within his most famous work, he speaks about two topics, two distinct events: the fall of Lucifer to hell by God's will and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden after original sin, instigated by Satan, and cause of his expulsion from paradise. Satan is therefore one of the protagonists of the story and in the extract's analysis can be found his presentation.

The piece opens with an open quote. This means that it is a dialogue, or at least a soliloquy. The character who utters such a dialogue is explained in the second verse, where a specification by the narrator allows the reader to understand the identity of the speaker. The expression lost Arch Angel is a clear reference to the figure of Satan, the archangel who, followed by others, went to meet the divine curse after bringing the first man and the first woman to disobey the will of God taking the apple of knowledge. Satan is called lost because his arbitrary action led him to the loss of something that belonged to him, because heaven was his home of law. The intrusion of the same narrator reinforces the hypothesis of a dialogue: then presupposes the existence of an earlier part of the speech or at least a second person listening.

From the point of view of content, Satan's speech opens with the expression of some of his observations about the hellish place in which God has relegated him. Hell is called region (group of souls), soil (physical location), climate (living conditions) and home (archangel awareness of his condition of exile from paradise) and it has a negative connotation: Satan calls it a mournful gloom, a sad obscurity. This negative connotation contrasts with the subsequent positive view about heaven, contained in the same period, which is presented as the exact opposite of hell. Celestial light, in addition, opposes the previous darkness to heaven's light and defines paradise as something celestial, part of God and therefore infinitely good.

The first judgment of Satan is also composed of a rhetorical question. This questioning refer to the feelings experienced by the archangel at the time of the expulsion from paradise, to the surprise at the decision of God and because of the place where he now stands. The presumption of a listener is confirmed, always in the first sentence, by the presence of the first person plural (we).

The discussion continues with a short description of God by the archangel. He is seen as the current ruler and the now preceding the adjective lets assume a willingness of the speaking voice to subvert the order. Despite this hidden desire God is completely positively connoted by Satan, who calls him the only one who can recognize right from wrong and the upper among his equals (the archangels). Lucifer then realizes and admits his inferiority to the Lord. The first person plural returns then when Satan, after having devoted a part of his speech to the divine figure, turns to hell itself. At this point he mentions some happy friends, presumably the other archangels who followed him at the time of the fall in hell, while at the same time he speaks turned to hell itself, identified in the horrors and dangers of the deep.

After this part of the dialogue Satan describes himself referring only to moral characteristics and completely ignoring his own physical appearance. Satan defines himself free (We shall be free, in reference to the other archangels fallen to hell), a mind subject only to the his control and not to the time or place in which the being is (A mind not to be chang 'd by Place or Time). These two features refer to two basic elements of the Protestant culture: the free will given by God to man, which provides for the autonomy of decision and therefore the freedom, and individuality, the control of their decisions and the full understanding of their capacity and of their talents. Are precisely the qualities of Satan that led him, through free will, to the commission of sin that has relegated him to Hell.

In the last part of the speech he also continues the negative connotations of hell (oblivious pool - unhappy Mansion) as opposed to a positive addressed to God (greater - allmighty). In addition to this, it emerges for the first time the will of Lucifer to subvert the natural order. While first stands in some sense at the same level of God (seen that both govern on a domain even if hell is judged already by Satan less than heaven); now he expresses his willingness to be really on the same level, to exchange the places and connotations of heaven and Hell (make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n). The first sign is then taken up in the concluding lines of the extract: with rallied Arms to try what may be yet / Regain'd in Heav'n, or what blackberries lost in Hell. Satan wants to be the place of God, with the help of those who have been exiled from heaven with him and Hell itself, the two recipients of his speech about the previous points of the analysis.

After taking into account the various shades of the extract of the various parts in which it is made, we can conclude that the character of Lucifer is negatively connoted only because of where it is located and positively with regard to the Puritan values ​​that embodies. His description is implemented by placing it in comparison with God, and creating a parallel between Hell and Paradise.