John Milton - Life, Paradise Lost, Satan\'s Speech PDF

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Life, Paradise Lost, Satan's Speech...

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JOHN MILTON Milton was a committed protestant and humanist scholar who felt that his poetic inspiration was a gift from God. He was born in London into a wealthy puritan family in 1608. He learnt Greek, Latin and Italian. In 1637 he began a European tour, when he also visited Galileo near Florence. When back in England he supported Cromwell and became the Secretary of Foreign Languages in Cromwell's Council of State. After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Milton was arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth, but was soon released, because he was nearly blind and was considered a leading figure in literature. His three long epic poems were written during these years: • "Paradise Lost", his masterpiece; • "Paradise Regained", a much less grandiose poem about the coming of Christ, thanks to whom mankind is saved and reunited with God; • "Samson Agonistes", whose epic figure is used as an alter ego of Milton himself: Samson enemies are an allegory of Milton's enemy, the ones who took the power with the Restoration; The characteristic of an epic poem are: • the figure of the hero; • the supernatural features; • it narrates the great deeds of a man with great values and thoughts during his life and it doesn't talk about ordinary events; • there's always a moral teaching; • the adventures of the hero are a sort of a symbol/teaching for all humanity; Milton chose the epic genre for his masterpiece because of the greatness of his subject. He follows the typical epic conventions of the "primary epic poems" (Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid), adding religious themes, which was unusual. In fact, in his poem many images are taken from the Bible, but also mythology and primary epics. Paradise Lost: Paradise Lost is divided into 12 books. Book I opens with a clear statement of the theme of the play: man's first disobedience to God, namely Adam being tempted through Eve, and his expulsion from Heaven, the story of the rebel angels, hurled into Hell as a consequence of their rebellion. This epic play takes place in the Universe: in Heaven, Hell, and Eden. REGISTER: biblical, many references are taken from the Bible. The syntax is

elevated, since it's about great characters and topics, and poetic and matches the seriousness of the universal subject of the fall of man. This poetic style is peculiar to epic poems. The poetic diction Milton employed is very far from common speech: it abounds whit Latinisms, figures of speech and inversions. CHARACTERS: Adam, Eve, God (as an impending figure) and • Satan and his horrid crew: was one of the archangels who questioned God's authority, his being omniscient and his being the only one who could decide for everyone. For this reason he was sent to Hell with all the other angels. Although it's absurd to suggest that Milton intended Satan to be the hero of his masterpiece, nevertheless the Satan of Book I and Book II is portraited in a very captivating way and has all the characteristic of the epic hero: initiative, leadership, courage which refuses to accept defeat. Milton put a great deal of his soul into this character. As he was a rebel against the political authority of the King and the religious authority of the Church, his sympathy was for Satan, the rebel. METRE: iambic pentameter, new type of blank verses; PLACE SETTING: Hell, a place where God will never come, set by God himself, full of darkness and flames. It is a damned place, horrible for the soul, dedicated to those who need to be punished. All the people that are sent here by God will be soulless people, depried of the possibility of salvation, as a consequence of their actions. TIME SETTING: in the first Book, Hell had just been created, before of that the idea of evil didn't exist and nobody had ever to be punished. Hell is distant from heaven nine times as day and night to mortal men. The use of both past and present tenses represent the contrast of Satan's past and present condition. NARRATOR: third person, omniscient narrator. His words are completely trustworthy. VOCABULARY: variety of words and verbs that refer to a negative situation, very strong in their meaning (effective words). They mostly refer to: • feelings and soul; • sight (how Hell looks like); • tormenting heat (it's too much, causes pain); • eternal damnation, loss of freedom; SATAN'S SPEECH:

Satan is a tormented spirit: he knows that the willingly went against God, whatever the consequence would have been. He was sure about his decision. But at the beginning he feels a deep pain, because having lived in Heaven and having had the possibility to experience absolute happiness, perfection, order and beauty he has lost something important about his future and continues to remember the lost happiness he's never going to feel again. His present situation is in contrast with the memories of his past situation and prokes pain in is soul. In Milton's work Satan becomes the real hero. The Renaissance idea of hero was the one of a man who was the center of universe, who had the power of choice and could become the maker of his own destiny. But in the Middle Ages, the idea of being subjected to God dominated the thoughts of everybody. This new humanist spirit portraits a man that is conscious of his power of changing his life. Satan is this kind of hero: he will never surrender, even if he has been condemned to eternal damnation. He's self-confident and his mind can "make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven". So he doesn't mind if he reigns in Hell, on the contrary he thinks that's better to reign in Heaven: here nobody is superior than him, whereas in Heaven he would have always remained inferior than God. Whereby Satan is an hero, because he's someone who, whatever the world around him is can resist, someone who still maintains his own mind, whatever the condition of his life is. This peculiarity of Satan is called "titanism" and refers to the titanism of greek figures like Prometheus....