Commentary: paradise lost

COMMENTARY: PARADISE LOST

In "Paradise Lost", John Milton creates very realistic characters even if the story tells about a biblical event: Satan's fall through the Hell. This epic plot made Milton use a very rich vocabulary, full of metaphors and images. Because of the elevated topic, Milton used also the Latin syntax of the sentences. The characters of this work are taken from the Bible and are reminiscent of the several warriors and heroes created by Homes in his epic poems. For example, the most important, Satan himself, can be considered as an epic hero because of his characteristics: he's a leader, he's courageous and has a strong thirst of power. Satan's not willing to serve in Heaven because he knows he's equal to God: he's really strong and ready to fight against Him. In fact he accept his punishment and sees it as a prize, not as a punishment at all. He says "It's better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n". These words let us understand how Satan feels about his situation and about God.

This punishment is the consequence of his presumptuous behaviour because Satan should have respected God's will and respect his position in the universal hierarchy, where God has decided to put us. Milton uses this topic to make people understand to accept God's will and to surrender to it. This is a typical reflection of the point of view of his time.

Milton's Hell can be compare also to Dante's Divina Commedia: the difference between Milton's and Dante's Hell is the fact that in Dante's Hell there are several sins and several punishment, that's way it is divided into "gironi". In Milton's Hell instead there's only one sin: ambition. The sinners are all together in one big pool and Satan's reigns on them. His look is the same in both of the Hells: Satan is seen as a big worm, a snake, with 3 heads ad a big, long tail.