Satan’s soliloquy and
entry into the serpent:
Lines 99-191
This speech gives us considerable insight into Satan’s convoluted logic, lies and selfcontradictions, but it also conveys a wretchedness and loneliness which might
provoke our pity. His claims include the following:
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That earth is to be preferred to Heaven
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That he is doomed never to find refuge or peace
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That Mankind has been granted the favours rightly due to himself and his fellow
rebels
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That he is now forced to diminish his rightful glory even more by disguising
himself as a snake
(Paradise Lost, Oxford Student Text, page 50)
What is the purpose of a
soliloquy?
Bullet point three or four ideas
here:
Ext. think about how Webster uses soliloquy in The White Devil
“When Milton does turn to dramatic soliloquy he makes
it plain that this is a fallen genre. It is a mark of loneliness;
and as God himself says “it is not good for man to be
alone.” To be alone is to be cut off not just from man but
from God, and therefore from one’s true self. The Devil
soliloquises, but Adam and Eve only do so in the last
moment before they fall.” Caroline Moore, The Connell
Guide to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, p.33
Slightly
conflicting
critical ideas
about
Milton’s use
of soliloquy!
“More than any epic poet before him, Milton makes use
of soliloquy – a characteristic feature of Elizabethan and
Jacobean tragedy….Satan has five soliloquies in Paradise
Lost, and Adam and Eve speak soliloquies when they are
fallen or about to fall. Critics often say that the characters
of Paradise Lost do not soliloquize until they are fallen,
but the good angel Abdiel soliloquizes and Adam’s first
words on walking into life are ab address to the sun.”
Introduction to penguin edition of Paradise Lost, p.xi
In the soliloquy, find evidence that
Milton presents Satan as…
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Melodramatic
Self delusional
Vengeful
Proud
Boastful
Envious
Selfish
Determined/Resolved (“Milton’s
representation of Satan’s internal
thoughts do not, like in Shakespeare’s
Macbeth, show someone stumbling
towards self knowledge.” Caroline
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Moore)
Pitiable
Confused
Regretful
Egotistical
Knowingly self-destructive
Self-entrapped
Despairing
Compulsive
Disgusted
In his presentation of Satan, does
Milton portray the grandeur of a
tragic/epic hero?
Physical actions symbolize moral
effects of those actions
Self-loathing
Wounded pride
O foul descent! That I who erst contended
With gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast, and mixed with bestial slime,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of deity aspired (163-67)
Grotesque parody of the
son’s incarnation as man.
Milton emphasises Satan’s
degeneration
Is Satan
aware of
the irony?
Compressed or forced. By who? By himself?
A sense that his revenge “must on”? Later
Satan says: “who aspires must down as low
as high he soared…” – it is the lot of the
revenger. Where else have we seen this
sense of compulsion with the modal verb
“must” in TWD? Constraint is internal rather
than external?
Satan implicitly likens himself to Adam
and Jesus
• Links himself with Adam (line 133)
• Links himself with Jesus (line 166)
How does this portray Satan?
- delusional?
- Self aggrandising?
Agree/Disagree with these critical
staements?
• Milton give us a “nuanced portrait of Satan and his ambiguous
political and heroic behaviour, exploring his motives for revenge and
tyranny, while showing us his potential for tragic feeling.
• “Milton’s Satan is a much more inward character than one would
expect to find, say, among the epic heroes of Homer and Virgil…these
heroic individuals tend to be defined more exclusively by their public
and external achievements, actions or status and they never speak
dramatic soliloquies, as Satan does, as though he were alone on
stage. By giving Satan such interiority, Milton further complicates and
revises the heroic materials he inherits.”
(David Loewenstein in A Student Guide to Paradise Lost, Cambridge, p.
61)
From what you have read in the soliloquy, do
you agree with these critical statements?
“Satan, cast down to hell by a vindictive and smiling God, comes before us with a heroic
magnificence, a conviction that ‘Here at last/We shall be free’ and ‘better to reign in hell, than
serve in heaven’. How obviously like this – so goes the argument – to Milton’s own predicament
at the time of the Restoration. Milton could scarcely write about rebellion, it is thought, without
secretly being on the side of the rebels” A.N. Wilson in The Life of John Milton (1983)
• Wilson implies that this “obvious” argument is too simplistic. Do you agree? By the time of
Milton writing PL, would such gung-ho rebellion not seem a little naïve? John Carey writes
that Satan’s predicament is more complex and “curious than any such parallel would allow”.
• From what you have read in Satan’s soliloquy, to what extent do you think that Milton is “on
the side of the rebels”?
Satan undermines tyranny of God – Romantic fantastist. Shelley in A defence of Poetry eulogised
Satan’s persistence and resourcefulness and deplored the Almighty’s vindictiveness: “Nothing can
exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed in Paradise
Lost…Milton’s Devil as a moral being…is far superior to his God.” Do you agree/disagree with this
Romantic statement?
Satan’s predicament of
revenge…in control?
…That to the height of deity aspired;
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low
As high he soared, obnoxious first or last
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils
Pun?
What is the effect of Milton’s frequent use of contrasts in
Satan’s speech? Confused? Out of control?
Compelled
onwards
Driven to debase
himself
Is Satan in
control of his
actions? Has he
given up free
will?
Milton believes
that freedom
comes precisely
from
recognizing
one's place in
the grand
scheme and
obeying the
dictates of that
position. By
disobeying God,
does Satan
really have any
freedom?
Debate: Does Satan have any real
interiority in his soliloquies?
P.63 Loewenstein
“Satan’s dramatic
soliloquies do in fact
become increasingly
solipsistic, subjective
and inward: he goes
from addressing the
sun to addressing the
earth(9.99ff), the
territory he aims to
destroy, to
addressing, in his last
soliloquy, his
thoughts (9.473ff)
It’s dramatic qualities are controlled,
constrained from the outset by the
narrator’s before and after summing up –
a way to reduce/diminish Satan’s sense
of power. Does this portray the loss of
Satan’s free choice? Does this prevent us
from being drawn into his despair? Does
this make his loneliness more absolute?
Caroline Moore P.33
“When the Devil soliloquises, he is not so
much dramatic as melodramatic. Milton’s
representation of Satan’s internal thoughts
do not, like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, show
someone stumbling towards selfknowledge…Instead, the Devil’s soliloquies
show a gradual falling-away into posturing
staginess” p.31-32 Caroline Moore
Comparisons between PL
and TWD
Milton
Webster
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How do both texts show a disruption of the moral order through their use of use of
soliloquy?
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How do both texts use soliloquies differently?
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In their use of soliloquies, both texts show characters who knowingly choose evil. Discuss
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Both texts how the power of reason and free will can become warped and misguided. Both
writers show that their characters are utterly responsible for their own fate. Agree/disagree?
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Both texts have characters which challenge obedience to hierarchy, with tragic outcomes.
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Both texts show characters who have become delusional. Discuss.