Paradise Lost

Characters

Satan

Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels, William Blake (1808).

Satan, formerly called Lucifer, is the first major character introduced in the poem. He is a tragic figure who famously declares: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" (1.263). Following his vain rebellion against God he is cast out from Heaven and condemned to Hell. The rebellion stems from Satan's pride and envy (5.660ff.).

Opinions on the character are often sharply divided. Milton presents Satan as the origin of all evil, but some readers have struggled with accepting this interpretation. Romanticist critics in particular, among them William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Hazlitt, are known for interpreting Satan as a hero of Paradise Lost. This has led other critics, such as C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams, both of whom were devout Christians, to argue against reading Satan as a sympathetic, heroic figure.[18][19] Despite Blake thinking that Milton intended for Satan to have a heroic role in the poem, Blake himself described Satan as the "state of error", and as beyond salvation.[20]

John Carey argues that this conflict cannot be solved, because the character of Satan exists in more modes and greater depth than the other characters of Paradise Lost: in this way, Milton has created an ambivalent character, and any "pro-Satan" or "anti-Satan" argument is by its nature discarding half the evidence. Satan's ambivalence, Carey says, is "a precondition of the poem's success – a major factor in the attention it has aroused".[21]

However, in Lewis's book "A Preface to Paradise Lost", he notes that it is important to remember what society was like when Milton wrote the poem. In particular, during that time period, there were certain "stock responses" to elements that Milton would have expected every reader to have. As examples, Lewis lists "love is sweet, death bitter, virtue lovely, and children or gardens delightful". Milton would have expected readers to not view Satan as a hero at all. Lewis says readers far in the future romanticizing Milton's intentions is not accurate because:

"The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is—what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used. After that has been discovered, the temperance reformer may decide that the corkscrew was made for a bad purpose, and the communist may think the same about the cathedral. But such questions come later. The first thing is to understand the object before you: as long as you think the corkscrew was meant for opening tins or the cathedral for entertaining tourists you can say nothing to the purpose about them."[22]

Lewis goes on to note that regarding Paradise Lost, the first thing we need know is "what Milton meant it to be," a need which he argues is "specially urgent in the present age because the kind of poem Milton meant to write is unfamiliar to many readers."[22]

Later in the book Lewis details the character of Satan in Paradise Lost, and why he was not someone Milton would have considered a hero or someone to take pleasure in.

Adam

Adam is the first human created by God. Adam requests a companion from God:

Of fellowship I speakSuch as I seek, fit to participateAll rational delight, wherein the bruteCannot be human consort. (8.389–392)

God approves his request then creates Eve. God appoints Adam and Eve to rule over all the creatures of the world and to reside in the Garden of Eden.

Adam is more gregarious than Eve and yearns for her company. He is completely infatuated with her. Raphael advises him to "take heed lest Passion sway / Thy Judgment" (5.635–636). But Adam's great love for Eve contributes to his disobedience to God.

Unlike the biblical Adam, before Milton's Adam leaves Paradise he is given a glimpse of the future of mankind by the Archangel Michael, which includes stories from the Old and New Testaments.

Eve

William Blake, The Temptation and Fall of Eve, 1808 (illustration of Milton's Paradise Lost).

Eve is the second human created by God. God takes one of Adam's ribs and shapes it into Eve. Whether Eve is actually inferior to Adam is a vexed point. She is often unwilling to be submissive. Eve may be the more intelligent of the two. When she first met Adam she turned away, more interested in herself. She had been looking at her reflection in a lake before being led invisibly to Adam. Recounting this to Adam she confesses that she found him less enticing than her reflection (4.477–480).

Eve delivers an autobiography in Book 4.[23]

In Book 9, Milton stages a domestic drama between Adam and Eve, which results in Eve convincing Adam to separate for a time to work in different parts of the Garden. This allows Satan to deceive her while she is alone. To tempt her to eat the forbidden fruit, Satan tells a story about how he ate it, using the language of Renaissance love poetry. He overcomes her reason; she eats the fruit.[23]

The Son of God

The Judgment of Adam and Eve: "So Judged He Man", William Blake (1808)

The Son of God is the spirit who will become incarnate as Jesus Christ, though he is never named explicitly because he has not yet entered human form. Milton believed in a subordinationist doctrine of Christology that regarded the Son as secondary to the Father and as God's "great Vice-regent" (5.609).

Milton's God in Paradise Lost refers to the Son as "My word, my wisdom, and effectual might" (3.170). The poem is not explicitly anti-trinitarian, but it is consistent with Milton's convictions. The Son is the ultimate hero of the epic and is infinitely powerful—he single-handedly defeats Satan and his followers and drives them into Hell. After their fall, the Son of God tells Adam and Eve about God's judgment. Before their fall the Father foretells their "Treason" (3.207) and that Man

with his whole posteritie must dye, Dye hee or Justice must; unless for him Som other able, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death. (3.210–212)

The Father then asks whether there "Dwels in all Heaven charitie so deare?" (3.216) and the Son volunteers himself.

In the final book a vision of Salvation through the Son is revealed to Adam by Michael. The name Jesus of Nazareth, and the details of Jesus' story are not depicted in the poem,[24] though they are alluded to. Michael explains that "Joshua, whom the Gentiles Jesus call", prefigures the Son of God, "his name and office bearing" to "quell / The adversarie Serpent, and bring back [...] long wander[e]d man / Safe to eternal Paradise of rest".[25]

God the Father

God the Father is the creator of Heaven, Hell, the world, of everyone and everything there is, through the agency of His Son. Milton presents God as all-powerful and all-knowing, as an infinitely great being who cannot be overthrown by even the great army of angels Satan incites against him. Milton portrays God as often conversing about his plans and his motives for his actions with the Son of God. The poem shows God creating the world in the way Milton believed it was done, that is, God created Heaven, Earth, Hell, and all the creatures that inhabit these separate planes from part of Himself, not out of nothing.[26] Thus, according to Milton, the ultimate authority of God over all things that happen derives from his being the "author" of all creation. Satan tries to justify his rebellion by denying this aspect of God and claiming self-creation, but he admits to himself the truth otherwise, and that God "deserved no such return / From me, whom He created what I was".[27][28]

Raphael

The Archangel Raphael with Adam and Eve (Illustration to Milton's "Paradise Lost"), William Blake (1808).

Raphael is an archangel who is sent by God to Eden in order to strengthen Adam and Eve against Satan. He tells a heroic tale about the War in Heaven that takes up most of Book 6 of Paradise Lost. Ultimately, the story told by Raphael, in which Satan is portrayed as bold and decisive, does not prepare Adam and Eve to counter Satan's subtle temptations – and may even have caused the Fall in the first place.[29]

Michael

Michael is an archangel who is preeminent in military prowess. He leads in battle and uses a sword which was "giv'n him temperd so, that neither keen / Nor solid might resist that edge" (6.322–323).

God sends Michael to Eden, charging him:

from the Paradise of God Without remorse drive out the sinful Pair From hallowd ground th' unholie, and denounce To them and to thir Progenie from thence Perpetual banishment. [...] If patiently thy bidding they obey, Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveale To Adam what shall come in future dayes, As I shall thee enlighten, intermix My Cov'nant in the womans seed renewd; So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace. (11.103–117)

He is also charged with establishing a guard for Paradise.

When Adam sees him coming he describes him to Eve as

not terrible, That I should fear, nor sociably mild, As Raphael, that I should much confide, But solemn and sublime, whom not to offend, With reverence I must meet, and thou retire. (11.233–237)


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