'SATAN’S SPEECH' by John Milton

 

These lines are taken from Book I of 'Paradise Lost'.

 

The title 'Paradise Lost' employs a negative judgement.

So it is as if we were making a calculation, we have to pay the bill at the end of our life. And if God sends us into Heaven or into Hell depends on our behavior, on our choices. So, and this is Satan's case, we have to take our responsibilities.

“You can't get what you didn't give.”

This is a religious point very important for the puritans, and Milton was a puritan.

So in this text this puritan mind is expressed with the thought that if you didn't do your duty you will not receive the blessing of God. You lose an opportunity.

Just like the case of Adam and Eve that were sent back to the Earth and they lost Paradise because they disobeyed to God. God did not mean and punched them provided they conformed to the rules. They didn't conformed and they were sent off Paradise, from which 'Paradise Lost' takes its origin as well as Satan lost Paradise because they didn't follow the rules.

This explains a very important aspect of Puritanism because Puritanism was based on a rigid orthodox code of living. So everybody should know what his duties were.

 

`Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,’

Said then the lost archangel,

 

Satan is speaking, because Satan is the lost dark angel fell from Paradise and arrived at Hell.

He arrives at Hell and he quickly realizes that Hell is really different from Heaven because the atmosphere is hotter and the everything is burning.

 

`this the seat

That we must change for heav’n, this mournful gloom

For that celestial light?

 

At 4th line the speaking voice uses an interrogative form because he is surprised.

This is a rhetorical question. He knows that this is the place, he has just arrived there.

But he feels lost, he's not glad to be there and he can't believe it, so he's surprised.

So the first reaction is his incredibility. He can't accept that he has been plunged into Hell.

 

There is a repetition (THIS the region, THIS the soil, `THIS the seat) which communicate a surprise. He can't believe his eyes, he is surprised.

This is an anaphoric structure where the same structure is repeat over and over again. It may suggest that wherever he looked that, in that place, he always had to say that the choice he made was wrong.

He could only imagine something terrible and dark but not so much, because Heaven is exactly the opposite.

 

So Paradise, or Heaven, is anyway connoted in the first 4 lines thanks to the linguistic choices that Milton makes. celestial lightand heav’nare the semantic choices Milton made in order to communicate Satan's surprise in front of the new place he has been plunged into.

As readers we perceive his surprise, we perceive that he couldn't believe his eyes.

 

There's one part of the line that very well synthesizes his reaction: “this mournful gloom”. So the place is connoted as gloom and mournful.

But 'mournful' is an adjective that comes from the verb 'to mourn'.

During the period, that is during the puritan period and during the period when 'A valediction forbidding mourning' was written, the high frequency of the verb to mourn should suggest something about the atmosphere of the period.

This verb is used when somebody dies.

So death is at the centre. The problem with death is there.

Death employs, according to the religious cause, whatever somebody is, whatever the religious code, death is fear and it marks the moment when people, citizens, pilgrims or not, have to be judged. So death is not only the end of our physical life but it employs also to be judged.

 

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he

Who now is sovran can dispose and bid

What shall be right:

 

There's an enjambement between the 4th and the 5th line.

 

The word 'sovran' mean something about the reign.

The term 'king' comes from God, not vice versa.

Somebody who is over the reign, in a place and in a culture where the reign, that is the kingdom, was, in a way or another, manage by a sovereign is below God.

From the line so far God's sovereign is suggested by the verbs 'dispose'and 'bid'and the word 'sovran'and 'right'.

 

What is put under discussion is desires and wishes different from what we were supposed to get, because such desires creates instability.

God created creatures, according to the puritans, with a lot of opportunities. It would be their duty to exploit the opportunities or not. If they don't exploit the opportunity they are lost, if they exploit their opportunity they progress on the social order.

 

God is he who knows what shall be right. Not following God's indications makes the person lost.

 

to lose, lost, lost is something that is yours.

So the problem is to look for your life, not somebody else's.

 

Only your wisdom an help you in your life. the Others cannot do your duty. So if you lose Paradise is just your decision.

This makes you understand that Milton sides with Satan because Milton perfectly knows that following the dogma, so following God's indication because he is the only one who knows what is right, is difficult for human beings. This makes Satan a hero. And this makes Milton a such modern and importune poet.

Milton makes you understand that the way for Salvation is toilsome, and it's the one that every human being has to make by himself.

No one has compelled Satan to got out from Paradise. He made some choices that brings him to meet himself into Hell.

No one said that everybody want Paradise.

When people go into adventures, they don't know where their itinerary will bring them. Because when somebody follows his instinct, they don't know how it will end, if he made the right or the wrong choices.

 

This poem should never be a catholic poem because for Catholic religion the idea of God is the one of someone who punishes you. While in the Puritanism you punish yourself because you don't follow God's indications. God gives human beings free choice.

 

Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

Above his equals.

 

God is equal to human beings in reason, but force, willpower, makes God supreme.