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 ht 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 e 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.
