Discuss Milton’s presentation of Satan in Paradise Lost There has been considerable critical interest in the figure of Satan in Paradise Lost, and in the possibility that he may be the true hero of the epic poem. The opening of the poem finds Milton in a tough spot: writing an epic poem without an epic hero in sight. In order to achieve a rationally balanced poem, he wants to let the first half rise from Hell through Chaos and towards Heaven, thereby balancing the fall of humankind in the
the Biblical account of the fall in the Book of Genesis, with his epic poem, Paradise Lost, John Milton adds a lot of detail about the complete story of Man, the beginning of Satan, his rise and Man's Fall. Although the ideas for Paradise Lost came from a few pages in the Book of Genesis, Milton's account kept readers wondering what was going to happen next. Because he was going against the church already with Paradise Lost, it was more intriguing for him to take the same ideas in the Bible and extend
Sin and Death in Paradise Lost Abstract: Death assumes in his original argument, with most readers of Paradise Lost, that Satan is all bad, having rejected God, and presumably that his charisma is illusory. Sin assumes, with Empson, that Satan's entire career, including his corruption of Eve, is the project of an all-powerful and sinister God. By the time Satan gets to Mt. Niphates in Book IV he is convinced of both; he recognizes that his misery is his own fault for rejecting