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| Courageous General |
Monday, November 7, 2016
Milton's View of the Bible
Why did Milton choose to tell the story of Satan? He seems to have felt the need to put his own view of Satan into the mix and make him the anti-hero or main character of his tale. Through Milton's story we are able to see the beginnings of Satan's perspective on the fall of Eden and why he pushed the humans toward committing sin.
This perspective of Satan seems a little bit different then how we usually hear of Satan. We see Satan as being portrayed as this military leader giving a speech to his troops to not give up even though they have been defeated by God once. This portrayal seems to almost humanize Satan in way that seeing him as this other worldly grotesque beast cannot do. Even though you do not agree with what he doing, bertraying God, you can relate to the speeches that he is giving to his troops to hold their heads up and continue to fight.
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I love Milton's humanization of Satan. I hope I don't offend anyone, since I'm not religious to begin with, but let's pretend this isn't a Biblical backstory at all. If this was just a regular story, Satan would be everyone's favorite character. He rebells against his authority with some friends, loses, and makes the best out of his situation through the power of his mind and his belief in free will. Of course, Milton doesn't leave out his eternal hatred for God or his tendency to persuade others to sin...but those are traits you just can't leave out if you're talking about the real Satan.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amanda that Milton's portrayal of Satan is pretty cool...I think that it adds a different side of the story! Satan is very often portrayed as a die hard evil-doer, but talking about his torment and his glass-half-full attitude definitely helps us understand his side of the story. We're seeing more of the loser's side of the story than we are the winner's, which is pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteI do have to say that while I was reading the first book of Milton's story, I had a lot of respect (and even empathy) for Satan and I certainly thought he was an interesting character to say the least. He may not end up being the tragic hero of the poem, but he is certainly extremely interesting in the way that he handles his defeat in Hell. For someone chained to a burning lake, he certainly has a pretty optimistic outlook on the entire thing.
ReplyDeleteI think i kind of like that we get to see a humanized version of Satan. You do not really see Satan as human or as close to human as he can get often. Milton's choice of giving us some backstory to what makes Satan the person he is captures your attention better than started with the same beginning of Adam and Eve.
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