John Miltons Paradise Lost

John Miltons' Paradise Lost depicts Satan in his rebellion against God. God expels Satan from Heaven, and thus Satan tries to corrupt Gods new world and creature or simply Earth and humankind in general. Paradise Lost gives a different insight on Satan, is he a hero or merely a fool?

Paradise Lost, being an extremely long, epic poem was written in numerous books that each had their own meaning and gave specific details in Satan's journey and his plot. Book one describes how Satan and his followers were expelled from Heaven and are trying to get back in, how Satan will settle for Gods "New World", and is giving the basic synopsis of the entire poem (Milton 5) In the books that follow many things happen. Satan for one travels to the New World that God has created to entice Gods new creature to sin against God (Milton 26) Throughout the entire phase of Satan's long journey to Earth, God is well aware of Satan's motive and of his plan, but does nothing God decided that man must obey Him and declare divine justice in order to receive His grace ( (Milton 53) . Satan finally reaches Earth and tries to entice Eve into taking an apple off of the Tree of Knowledge which God said strictly not to do, but is stopped by the angels Michael and Gabriel (Milton 124). Satan is forced to come back to Eden at night and to inhabit a serpent Satan then speaks into Eve's ear while she was sleeping and Eve had a dream about the Tree and of how sweet the fruit looked. The next morning Eve tells Adam of her dream, then runs off to the tree where the serpent is waiting. Satan finds Eve alone and entices her to do wrongly against God. Eve then eats an apple off of the Tree of Knowledge and God casts Adam and Eve out of Paradise (Milton 182).

Because of how Paradise Lost is written, many opinions have come out of what the real meaning Milton was trying to get by. Heaven and paradise are two things that are in great detail in Paradise Lost. Some say the reason that Satan revolted is because "The Father first says he will give the Son all power, then in the present tense "I give thee" yet he had given it already or enough to cause Satan and his followers to revolt"(Bloom 51). Milton shows that Satan is in constant demand of Heaven and will do anything to get it back because of how beautiful heaven is and of how bad of a place hell is (Bloom 50). A famous quote from the book suggests that Satan is content with Heaven, the quote from Satan says "It is better to rule in Hell, than to serve in Heaven." Thomas Greene gave an insight on how bad Hell is by saying "Heaven is pure, that which describes hell is murkily accommodated to the darkness visible" (Bloom 76).

The concepts of Paradise Lost has caught the eye of many critics and these critics often share different points of view on what Milton really meant in his epic poem. According to critic Harold Bloom, "The hope for man in Paradise Lost

is that Adam's descendants will find their salvation in the fallen world" (Bloom 3). "Paradise Lost is the only epic to incorporate the celestial descent into a larger, and indeed a comprehensive pattern of imagery, a pattern which includes the poems two major events - the falls of Satan and of Adam" (Bloom 79). Miltons'

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