John Milton

Didascalia alternativa:

a lake of fire in Hell. Satan is the most beautiful angel of Paradise, his name means "the enemy of God" in Hebrew. He has been expelled from Heaven with his fellow. They debate and decide to attempt the most beautiful creation of God, the man, so he succeeds in entering the Garden of Eden, and he manages to convince Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Setting John Milton based his universe on the more traditional Ptolemaic system. In Milton's Heaven, God sits on his throne surrounded by the nine orders of angels. The tenth order, which revolted under Satan, has been sent to Hell, which is the antithesis of Heaven. Characters → Satan: during the opening is considered a "hero" because he shows many of the characteristics of the tragic epic hero: leadership, courage, a refusal to accept defeat, a willingness to undertake the desperate enterprise to escape from Hell and attack man. Milton compares himself with Satan, because both of them had a rebellious character. → Adam: his choice of disobeying God gives him his full frail humanity. His main weakness is his infatuation with Eve. Themes → Obedience and rebellion: It tells the story of Adam and Eve's disobedience and describes how and why it happened. → Fate and free will: Satan is determined to be free even though the price of his freedom is banishment to hell. Style The style of his poem is grand and serious, to match its subject matter. It is elevated and complex, with Latin syntax and difficult vocabulary. The poet used a new kind of blank verse and similes used to intensify the heroic stature of the subject. An epic poem Milton chose this genre because of the greatness of his subject matter: man's fall. He followed the traditional epic conventions by opening the poem with a precise statement of its theme. Stan is no longer a warrior, so we have the changing spirit of the age, like Achille but we have a more philosophical central charter. Satan acts in his own self interest. Satan's speech This is the beginning of the poem, where Satan and other fall angels arrived in Hell. Here Satan started to speak: Satan compares Hell to Heaven and him to God. He says that he and God have the same abilities but the only difference is the power that God has and he does not have. He also says that he is a person who won't change his mind by place or time. Thanks to this he could make a Heaven of Hell and Hell of Heaven. • In the second part of the text Satan realizes that he could have a free power reigning in Hell and decides to also attack the most beautiful creation of God, the Man.