Sin and Death in Paradise Lost
Abstract: Death assumes in his original argument, with most readers of Paradise Lost, that Satan is all bad, having rejected God, and presumably that his charisma is illusory. Sin assumes, with Empson, that Satan's entire career, including his corruption of Eve, is the project of an all-powerful and sinister God. By the time Satan gets to Mt. Niphates in Book IV he is convinced of both; he recognizes that his misery is his own fault for rejecting God, but he knows that God is still in control of him and of his miseries even though he has brought them on himself. Essay begins below.
In Jamaica Kincaid's novel Lucy, the narrator remembers, as a teenager, discovering why her mother named her as she did:
"I named you after Satan himself. Lucy, short for Lucifer. What a botheration
from the moment you were conceived." . . . In the minute or so it took for all
this to transpire, I went from feeling burdened and old and tired to feeling
light, new, clean. I was transformed from failure to triumph. It was the moment
I knew who I was. When I was quite young and just being taught to read, the
books I was taught to read from were the Bible, Paradise Lost, and some plays by
William Shakespeare. I knew well the Book of Genesis, and from time to time I
had been made to memorize parts of Paradise Lost. The stories of the fallen were
well known to me, but I had not known that my own situation could even distantly
be related to them. Lucy, a girl's name for Lucifer. That my mother would have
found me devil-like did not surprise me, for I often thought of her as god-like,
and are not the children of g...
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...e, is the project of an all-powerful and sinister God. By the time Satan gets to Mt. Niphates in Book IV he is convinced of both; he recognizes that his misery is his own fault for rejecting God, but he knows that God is still in control of him and of his miseries even though he has brought them on himself. What Satan in the first four books is that an
understanding of God, like a reading of the poem itself, must be cumulative, not
bifurcatory.
Works Cited
Empson, William. Milton's God. London: Chatto and Windus, 1961.
Fallon, Stephen. Milton Among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in
Seventeenth-Century England. Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1991.
Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. New York: Penguin, 1990.
Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. New York: Macmillan, 1957.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem portraying John Milton’s theological standpoints. The theme is knowledge and the fall of man. Milton uses his poem to state some of his theological beliefs and his personal reflections. Milton wrote Paradise Lost in the 17th century but uses influence from classic poets. Milton’s epic is an extremely important piece of literature. The excerpt used in this commentary takes on the subjects of sin and the punishment with regards to the atonement from God’s point of view. Milton’s states many of his own theological opinions but wants the reader to know that God is justified in everything that he does, and also wants them to know that man has free will.
Many arguments have been made that Dante’s Inferno glimmers through here and there in Milton’s Paradise Lost. While at first glance the two poems seem quite drastically different in their portrayal of Hell, but scholars have made arguments that influence from Dante shines through Milton’s work as well as arguments refuting these claims. All of these arguments have their own merit and while there are instances where a Dantean influence can be seen throughout Paradise Lost, Milton’s progression of evil and Satan are quite different from Dante. Dante’s influence on Milton is noted by many scholars and is very apparent in several instances throughout Paradise Lost, however, Milton shows a progression of evil through his own vision of Satan and creates a Hell that is less meticulously constructed than Dante’s and more open to interpretation.
My definition of curriculum is; the subject matter, material resources, and real world skills taught, and presented to students within the worlds’ school systems.
4 “And now / [Adam] led on, yet sinless, with desire to know” (Paradise Lost VII.60-01).
To conclude child observation is a method to understand the child’s world, how they react within their environment. I found it really useful to learn about the child’s development, thoughts, focus on feelings and at different ages the child goes on developing his/her capacities. Every single context can change what the observer sees because a child can have different reactions in front of his/her parents and in front of a carer. Social workers learn from the experiences and reflect within their own practice. It is an important technique for social workers, needed to develop these skills associated with being a practitioner.
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is more reason for him to follow an evil path instead. Even so, Milton uses literal and figurative imagery in the description of Satan’s character to manipulate the reader’s response to the possibility that Satan may actually be a heroic figure. As the plot of the story unfolds there are moments where the reader can identify with Satan’s desires and relate to his disappointments.
Milton's introduction of Satan shows the reader how significant Satan is to Paradise Lost. He uses Satan's heroic qualities to his followers, and his ability to corrupt to show the thin line between good and evil. Satan was one of the highest angels in Heaven and was know as Lucifer, meaning, light bearer. This shows he was once a good angel. Milton makes the reader see him as a leader and a strong influence to all in his presence. He best describes Satan's ways when stating, "His pride/ had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host. / Of rebel angels, by whose aspiring/ To set himself in glory above his peers" (Milton Book I). Satan's pride was the main reason that God banned him from heaven. Satan always tried to be number one and a leader, instead of following in God's shadow. He would of lived a life in Paradise forever, but he had to follow his feelings as he states, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" (Milton 31). This shows how strongly he felt about not being above everybody else.
As soon as I walked into the room and identified just whom I was going to be talking
Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton uses various tools of the epic to convey a traditional and very popular Biblical story. He adds his own touches to make it more of an epic and to set forth new insights into God's ways and the temptations we all face. Through his uses of love, war, heroism, and allusion, Milton crafted an epic; through his references to the Bible and his selection of Christ as the hero, he set forth a beautifully religious Renaissance work. He masterfully combined these two techniques to create a beautiful story capable of withstanding the test of time and touching its readers for centuries.
Milton uses Satan as an example that even the angels have free will and can choose whether or not to serve God. Satan describes himself as an angel who fell victim to the vices of jealousy and pride and chose to become like God instead of basking in his glory. Satan, who was created by God, naturally has free will and chooses evil as his path, falling from glory. While creating hell does not seem to initially be part of God’s plan, he must now accommodate for the choices of the fallen angels and creates this as the lowest point of his world. After being banished from heaven, Satan reflects on his evil deeds and considers the option of redeeming himself before God. However, he realizes that he has come too far in his desire to become God’s equal and he commits to his evil ways. He is constantly confronted with choices throughout Paradise Lost and enacts his free will in rejecting God, accepting evil, and striving to become equally powerful over his own
Milton, John. ‘Paradise Lost.’ 1674. Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. 2 vols. New York: Norton, 2000, 1: 1817-2044.
Helen Gardner addresses this notion, claiming how “Satan is, of course, a character in an epic, and he is in no sense the hero of the epic as a whole. But he is a figure of heroic magnitude and heroic energy, and he is developed by Milton with dramatic emphasis and dramatic intensity” (Baker/Helen, 208). Satan is without a doubt the antichrist, or “villain” in the biblical scriptures, however one must take into consideration his alternative and more ambiguous portrayal in Paradise Lost. In this paper, I will analyze Satan’s actions, physical portrayal and speeches in Book I of Paradise Lost, and argue that from the textual evidence, these aspects of Satan are ultimately ambivalent, thus Satan cannot be categorized as either the extreme hero or the extreme villain, but rather as a dramatic figure with both heroic and villainous characteristics. The preliminary depiction of Satan’s actions in Paradise Lost appears after Milton describes God, his kingdom of heaven, and his children Adam and Eve.... ...
Criticism. The. New York: Norton, 1975. Fox, Robert C. "The Allegory of Sin and Death in Paradise Lost." Modern Language Quarterly 24 (1963): 354-64. ---.
In conclusion, Paradise Lost can be seen through a historically contextual lens that allows us to see the parallels between Milton’s life and experiences during the reign of Charles I, and the predominant themes in his epic poem. Many of the themes in Paradise Lost, from the broader situational occurrences to the behavior of individual character’s and their attitudes toward the situations in which they find themselves can be seen as directly influenced by Milton’s time as a Parliamentarian in 17th century England.
Although the epic poem centers around the story of the fall of man, it is interesting that Milton intertwines in this story the fall of Satan from heaven and the consequences it has not only for Satan himself, but for Adam, Eve, and the world as a whole. Milton allows the reader to see the fall from the point of view of Satan, God, as well as Adam and Eve. Because Milton gives insight into these characters feelings regarding the fall, it is no surprise that he uses “eternal providence” in conjunction with the stories of Satan, Adam, and Eve. The providence being described here is the knowledge of good and evil. However, ev...