论[失乐园]中撒旦的形象

An Analysis of Satan in Paradise Lost

论《失乐园》中撒旦的形象

An analysis of Satan in Paradise Lost

摘要

约翰·弥尔顿是英语文化历史上非常有名的一位作家。他的著作—《失乐园》是英语文化史上的一座里程碑。在约翰·弥尔顿所有的著作中，《失乐园》是最复杂，最难理解的一部作品，并为他赢得了永久的荣誉。他的史诗使得撒旦的形象更加生动，更加具有人性，并且使其在某些方面成为了一名特殊的英雄。弥尔顿用了很多的语句来描写撒旦对他的追随者所做的雄辩。撒旦追求自由，但是却不能用暴力手段得到他想要的。这就是撒旦在弥尔顿的著作中具有一种矛盾性。尽管弥尔顿用了一种积极的态度来描写撒旦，但是撒旦邪恶的本性却从未改变。他的矛盾情感鲜明地遍及整个诗篇。这种矛盾的情感吸引了众多批评家的目光，引起了几个世纪的争论。

本文通过分析撒旦在《失乐园》中的形象，使得人们获得一种不同的视角来重新审视邪恶的撒旦。他的字句反映了他毕生所挚爱的自由，同时暗示通过暴力方式所进行的革命终将会失败，这也体现了弥尔顿自己的意志与精神。

关键词：撒旦；自由；英雄；失败

Abstract

John Milton was a very famous writer during the history of English literature. His masterpiece Paradise Lost was undoubtedly a milestone in the history of English literature. Among all of John Milton’s great works, Paradise Lost was the most complicated and most profound one, which won him endless honor. His epic made Satan more vivid more humanized and made him a special hero in some aspects. Milton wrote a lot of sentences to describe Satan’s defense for his followers. Satan sought for freedom, but he couldn’t get what he wanted by violence. That’s why Satan in Milton’s masterpiece had a kind of contradiction. Although Milton adopted a positive attitude to describe Satan, his evil characteristic didn’t change at all. His ambivalence was obviously throughout the whole poem. This kind of ambivalence caught all critics’ eyes and led to centuries’ disputes.

By analyzing Satan in Paradise Lost, the author of this paper aims to make people obtain a different angle to revisit the evil one, Satan. His words showed his lifelong love for freedom, and implied that the revolution would be failed by violence, which also reflected Milton’s own idea and spirit.

Key Words: Satan; freedom; hero; failure

安阳师范学院人文管理学院本科毕业论文

Contents

摘要............................................................... I Abstract........................................................................................................................ II

1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1

2. The Realistic Significance of Paradise Lost ............................................................ 1

2.1 The Presentation of Every Image of Different Classes ..................................... 1

2.2 The Theme of the Whole Book ......................................................................... 2

2.3 The Doomed Ending of Satan ........................................................................... 2

3. The Changes of Satan .............................................................................................. 3

3.1 Satan in the Bible .............................................................................................. 3

3.1.1 The Congregation of All the Sins in Bible .............................................. 3

3.1.2 Satan’s Wisdom and Emotion ................................................................. 3

3.2 Satan in Paradise Lost ...................................................................................... 4

3.2.1 Satan as an Independent Image ............................................................... 6

3.2.2 Satan’s Contradiction .............................................................................. 7

3.2.3 The Eloquent Satan ................................................................................. 7

4. The Reasons of Satan’s Heroic Image .................................................................... 8

4.1 The Heroic Image of Satan ............................................................................... 8

4.2 The More Humanized Satan ............................................................................. 9

5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 10

Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 11

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 12

1. Introduction

While Shakespeare was still writing his great plays, another excellent English poet was born in London. He was John Milton. John Milton, one of the greatest poets of the English language, was a political commentator of the English Bourgeois Revolution, whose importance was acknowledged around the world. Although Milton’s father was a puritan, he was a music and book lover. Puritans refer to the people who assert themselves the most rigid believers of God. What’s more he taught little Milton to enjoy music and books. Milton has received humanistic thoughts from 16th century and accepted the great science achievements of the 17th century, at the same time he had a critical attitude towards his life. He thought that science was not everything. Without justice and science, people couldn’t get peace and real happiness. Milton’s literary ambition was to write an epic and he wanted his epic to be read by people in different countries. It took Milton seven years to finish the great epic Paradise Lost. Among all of John Milton’s great works, paradise Lost was the most complex and most impressive one, which won him everlasting honor. This book told the story of how Satan fought against God and how Adam and Eve were banished from the Eden. Satan was the major character in Paradise Lost. His images were impressive and powerful. The main character of this book was intricate and contradictory. After finishing his famous poem, John Milton wrote Paradise Regained and a play telling the story of Samson.

2. The Realistic Significance of Paradise Lost

2.1 The Presentation of Every Image of Different Classes

In this epic, Milton gave detailed description of every image, and as we know, the epic reflected the society Milton lived, so each image had its own presentation.

Milton was a puritan, who was very loyal to his beliefs. From this book, we can sense the strong will of freedom from Milton. Obviously, God was on behalf of the authority, and he was another best description of Milton’s personalities. Some people

agreed with Satan and regarded God as a tyrant and egoist. While other people who condemned Satan, took God as a merciful, just and lenient authority. The author also told us something from Abdiel’s mouth that the compliance with God was not servility, but the only way of getting freedom. These people who defied their superiors and stirred up a new rebellion were not servile and inferior. And as to Adam and Eve, they were tempted by Satan and punished by God, like all the common people, all the civilian class, they didn’t have the power or courage to fight against the authority, so they chose to adapt themselves to it. Because of the prominent background, the story in Paradise Lost and the Bible had a lot in common. That’s a very important reason why Paradise Lost became so popular.

2.2 The Theme of the Whole Book

If you have known Milton very well, you may find out that before he wrote this epic his life was not that positive. When he lived in this world, he loved freedom very much and tried his best to get freedom. Freedom as a topic is throughout the whole masterpiece.

The book has something to do with Milton’s own life experience. He was a tough guy, who never gave up his own belief and would stick to his will forever. Milton didn’t agree with the old way of teaching, which reflected his disobedience to feudalistic force, just as Satan’s rebellion against God and the conflict from heaven. “We may with more successful hope resolve to wage by force or guide eternal war, irreconcilable to our grand foe, who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy. Sole reigning holds the tyranny of heaven.”(Milton, 1667:1608)

Instead of withdrawing from society, Milton still played an active role in political affairs. Although he was not going to take part in politics directly, he continued to work with friends and colleagues closely. Satan’s rebellious and heroic images were presented in Milton’s thoughts. He always sought for freedom, like Satan always took some measures to get rid of God’s control.

2.3 The Doomed Ending of Satan

Milton was a loyal puritan and he knew that freedom was the only way to get

happiness. And revolution was a good way to get freedom. But at last, Milton realized that the revolution at that time couldn’t get real freedom. So, to some degree, the revolution must be a failure in his opinion. What’s more, from this book we can see that Satan was the typical representative of the revolutionary class, so we can say that failure was the doomed ending of Satan. By studying English history, we knew that the puritan revolution was a failure just like Milton implied in Paradise Lost. Violence is not a good way to solve problems. Milton was a puritan. Although he was not satisfied with the Crown, he didn’t agree to use the violence way to solve the conflict, either.

Maybe this point of view was not that right in reader’s eyes, but in fact, we all know that war will never bring happiness.

3. The Changes of Satan

3.1 Satan in the Bible

3.1.1 The Congregation of All the Sins in the Bible

There were two major reasons which made Satan a complete monster in Bible. The first reason was that he seduced good people into doing evil things. The second one was his betrayal of God. If we didn’t know something about Satan and his forces, we would not have a clear understanding of basic spiritual realities of the universe. The reason why Satan became the biggest enemy of God was that he was against the foundation of the earth. His main purpose was to get the worship that only belonged to the originator, God. To most people, Satan’s major work was to be against human beings. He would try his best to destroy the mankind. What’s more, he would do it for good and without specific reasons. Fear and pride were the major motivations in Satan’s kingdom. That’s why Bible directed people to regard Satan as a devil in this universe.

3.1.2 Satan’s Wisdom and Emotion

Satan’s wisdom as an important aspect was worthy to be mentioned. To tempt

Adam and Eve to eat apple from the tree of knowledge, which was forbidden by god, Satan disguised himself as a snake. He waited silently for a good time. Once Eve worked by herself and Adam wasn’t around her, Satan would come out and approach her. Satan knew what women prefer to hear, so he normally started the conversation with praise for Eve’s beauty. Then he could get what he wanted and made the emotional Eve lose her last line of protection and couldn’t wait to eat the fruit. What’s more, Satan was also emotional. For example, when he found out Adam and Eve were in love, he was moved by their pure feelings. And he would burst into tears at the sight of the suffering of his followers. After reading this epic, we could also sense that Satan had the dream to share happiness and tears together with his beloved followers.

3.2 Satan in Paradise Lost

John Milton was a great poet, thinker and political commentator of England in the 17th century. His masterpiece Paradise Lost was a long epic with 12 books, written in blank verse. These stories were taken from the Old Testament, such as the making of the earth, the love stories between Adam and Eve, the fallen angels in hell plotting against God, Satan’s temptation of Eve, and the leasing of Adam and Eve from Eden. Although Satan and his adherents were driven out of heaven into hell, Satan and his followers were not discouraged. The miserable punishment, instead of rubbing off their will, makes them much angrier. The purpose of this poem was to tell people to justify the manner of God towards people. This outstanding work was the product of Puritanism, which has shown Milton’s own will and beliefs of freedom. Satan in his masterpiece was not the same as the one in the Bible and other books.

In Paradise Lost, Satan was an independent image which can be studied and be discussed from a different perspective. I think the unique image of Satan was the reflection of the writer, who loved freedom and at the same time, expressed a kind of contradiction, and also the representation of the society at that time. This kind of idea has appeared in lots of articles written by Chen Weihong and professor Xiao

Minghan’s two articles. (1999&2011) They both think that:

1. The Satan in Paradise Lost was full of heroism, because of his defiant personality and the pursuit of freedom.

2. These characteristics made Satan an eclectic image, and made God a little bit pessimistic.

Xiao’s two articles showed that the unique image didn’t come from the Bible, but came from Milton himself. The words and actions Satan did in the hell and the main reason of his betrayal were the distinctive characteristics which helped Milton to describe Satan into a personalized image. The most important point in Satan’s characteristic was his strong will. No matter what kind of situation he was in, he had never changed his nature.

Another writer’s composition also expressed this kind of idea, which showed that the image of Satan in Paradise Lost was vivid and impressive. Satan’s betrayal, in other words, was the indomitable will to seek for freedom, and rejection of God’s slavery. And the contradiction was also shown by him. His image was the mixture of optimism and pessimism. We all thought that the most evil person in the Bible was Satan or we can say that Satan was the aggregate of all the sins. In the Bible, Satan’s name meant obstruction and separation. He was the public enemy number one of God and he was a pervert in God’s eyes. Something like this has mentioned in Paradise Lost. According to this epic, we knew that Satan wasn’t born with sins. His sins and his resentment were coming from his free choice.

Adam and Eve’s betrayal was the result of the wish for knowledge. After the punishment, they realized how to distinguish right from wrong, and started to beg the forgiveness of God. It was after the baptism of evil that the good would be more valuable. The last part was about Milton’s own idea, which has combined with Satan. Every image he had created was a reflection of different classes in the society of that time. In the paper of Huang Delin (2004), he has pointed out that Satan was Milton’s own presentation, and also, in Chen Jinxi’s article (2008), he said that the epic was the

reflection of the People’s spiritual condition. Milton combined his epic with the

puritan revolution. God presented the Cromwell government or the dictatorship of England; Satan presented the force of revolution. It was Milton, who was a loyal puritan and had realized that freedom must be the basis to get the freedom, but the revolution couldn’t get the real freedom. From Milton’s point of view, the revolution must be a failure. That’s why Satan had a kind of contradiction, he loved and sought for freedom, but he couldn’t get what he wanted by the means of violence. These opinions have appeared at the beginning of a translation version which was translated by Jin Fashen.

Lots of researches have been conducted on the images of Satan in Paradise Lost. It has left a profound and impressive influence on literature history. The author of this thesis will do a lot of stuff to do an analysis on this famous epic.

3.2.1 Satan as an Independent Image

In this masterpiece, the image of Satan was the most controversial image. The disputation about the image of Satan in Paradise Lost related to the inner nature of Satan was whether he was the hero in the epic or not. During all the literature history, tons of people thought Satan in Paradise Lost was a different image. In the first two volumes of Paradise Lost, some of Satan’s words showed he was a hero from time to time. John Milton’s Paradise Lost had a vivid description of a defiant Satan. He was banished from heaven and driven into the hell. Later, the image of Satan in Paradise Lost had been popular among people. The reason Satan could be an independent image in the epic, mostly due to his courage to show his indomitable will. After reading this masterpiece, we felt that Satan was like a hero in the earlier part of the epic. We could sense that through majesty in Satan’s appearance and fearless in his personality. However, with the story developed Satan’s image changed greatly. The most impressive nature of Satan was his contradiction. This element made the image of Satan glitter from the whole book, and became an actual part which is worth being studied.

3.2.2 Satan’s Contradiction

There was a very interesting point in the whole personality of Satan, which was

his contradiction, combined with wickedness and the strong will of freedom. Although Satan showed the positive character of his image, he still had some intrinsically evil genes. A leopard cannot change his spots. In this epic, although Milton was in favor of some traits of Satan, he had never tried to change Satan from a monster into a real hero: a monster is a monster.

To readers, after reading the first several books of Paradise Lost, they could sense that the writer tried to describe Satan into a sympathy and friendly character. On the content of this epic, besides the analysis of God’s and Satan’s personalities, there were also two points from the content of this book, which may reflect the aspects of disagreement in reader’s opinion. In the first two books of Paradise Lost, although Satan has made a good impression of hero on readers, he was still a monster as the initial story had told us. Adam and Eve made a mistake under the seduction Satan, and they suffered a lot from their mistake. The reason made Satan become such a kind of evil angle was his indomitable courage of chasing freedom.

3.2.3 The Eloquent Satan

In Paradise Lost, Satan was written as a hero who insisted on his own belief and he had the courage to seek for his beloved freedom. These pro-Satanists admired Satan’s high superior nature and regarded him as the actual hero of this masterpiece.

At the beginning of Paradise Lost, Satan made a wonderful speech which attracted many readers for a very long time. “That glory never shall his wrath or might. Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace with supplicant knee, and deify his power who, from the terror of his arm. Doubled his empire: that were low indeed. That was an ignominy and shame beneath. This downfall, since, by fate, the strength of God. And this substance cannot fail.”(Milton, 1667:1608)

These words were powerful and clear which made Satan’s ambition became so apparent, and also reflected his fighting spirit and independent personality.

Puritanism and the English Revolution were the distinguishing features of the seventeenth century. Milton realized it and he cleverly put political ideas to his pieces of art and also the images he created. Milton’s own life experiences and his pursuit of freedom caused him to endow Satan more or less with revolutionary spirit. Milton’s passion and feelings for revolution were reflected in the description of Satan and his rebellion.

4. The Reasons of Satan’s Heroic Image

The reason why people thought Satan in Paradise Lost as sort of a hero was due to his fearless. What’s more, he dared to fight against God. He always stuck to his own will, just like Milton himself. John Milton was born in a puritan family. What’s more, his childhood and the society that time gave him energy and resistance in his character, which was also easy to find from the words of Satan: “Princes, potentates, the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost. If such astonishment as this can seize eternal spirits! Awake, arise, or be forever fallen.”

Though failed, Satan never gave up his unconquerable will. Here, Satan was more than just a leader in military accepting the rebel angles from angelic state, but also a smart politician using the powerful language of resistance as his weapon to fight against God.

4.1 The Heroic Image of Satan

People normally thought Satan in Paradise Lost has given a heroic impression to them. But it was a little bit of misunderstanding because of the words that Satan said in the following epic. “In The Odyssey, Homer lets Odysseus give a speech that would convince anyone they could survive the journey to the strait of Messina. Then we die with our eyes open, if we are going to die, or know what death we baffle if we can.” (Paradise Lost: 1243-1245)

“Odysseus again lifts their spirits with this speech, Garcia 2 friends, have we ever been in danger before this? More fearsome, is it now, than when the Cyclops penned us in his cave? What power he had! Did I not keep my nerve, and use my wits

to find a way out for us? We must now obey orders as I give them.” ( Milton, 1667:1294-1302 ) Here Odysseus expressed the real capability of a hero to lead in the face of adversity.

Satan as any other leaders would do, quickly reduced his partners’ fear with much more powerful speeches. During the speeches, Satan talked his doubts about God’s supremacy and daringly stated they were better off where they were. “Here at least we shall be free. Here we may reign secure. Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.’’ (Milton, 1667: 258-263)

These were the most powerful nature points of Satan in the whole masterpiece. What’s more he always insisted on his personalities, such as tough bosom, independent spirit, intelligence, and the power of his own. These four points all took effectiveness on Satan, which made Satan look like a hero.

4.2 The More Humanized Satan

In Bible, and from most people’s points of view, Satan was the aggregate of all the sins, but in Paradise lost, Satan became a vivid image. What he said or did touched the readers profoundly. Milton wrote Paradise Lost to show people the source of misfortune. He thought the reason why Adam and Eve made a huge mistake and lost their beautiful home was that they were not strong enough to withstand the temptation of strangers. At the end of the story, we could know that, since Adam and Eve were lured into breaking the rules of Eden by Satan and they were all published by God and were driven out of Eden, Satan began to think about what he had done to the people, and he felt so sorry about what he had done. He blamed himself for a very long time. This kind of description made Satan look not that bad, but more humanized than the Bible said.

From what we have read or learned in Paradise Lost, Satan may be a devil. But he had ambitious and dreams, even sometimes he was a hero. He was a person with strong will and he delivered some powerful speeches to his followers from time to time. Undoubtedly, the image of Satan in Paradise Lost was more vivid than ever before. To sum up, the image of Satan was of dual personality. By learning from this

masterpiece, Satan’s evil behaviors and heroism were crossed. On the one hand, he tried his best to fight bravely for freedom and liberty with his wisdom and passion. On the other hand, he had a wrong opinion of freedom and power even though he expressed his ambition and satisfaction.

5. Conclusion

The words in Milton’s Paradise Lost reflected the Bible not only as a source of literature in western countries, but also influenced Milton greatly. we can learn something through the words of Milton. As a matter of fact, the Bible was often used to back up points of view on controversial things by poets. Since the Bible was studied by most of the people. And they used it as an authoritative source. Milton quoted a lot of things from the Bible and put them into his pamphlets.

Through the history, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, particularly his description of the image of Satan has been studied by lots of people and understood in many different ways. Until now, it has been developed into all kinds of new interpretations. On the one hand, some people say that Satan was the true hero of the epic and Milton was on the monster’s side secretly. On the other hand, there are those who said Satan was a monster and Milton showed deep sympathy for God and the angels. There are also some people who interweave the two interpretations.

But from the analysis of the above chapters, the changes of Satan’s character were obvious to see. And these changes make us get a much more different and much clearer picture of Milton’s own attitudes toward Satan. Milton spent all his life putting his political purpose into action.

From my point of view, although Satan was a heroic image, he was not a hero. The spirit he expressed through the everlasting fighting against God made him a real fighter. And the love for freedom was the main theme which I have learned from this book. It is more than just a passage or a kind of study, but in the end, a sympathetic chord appeared during the reading. To sum up, the image of Satan in Paradise Lost was vivid, ambivalent and complex, overshadowing all the other characters.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this thesis. I gratefully acknowledge the help of my supervisor, XXX, who has offered me valuable suggestions in the academic studies. In the preparation of the thesis, she has spent much time reading through each draft and provided me with inspiring advice. Without her patient instruction, insightful criticism and expert guidance, the completion of this thesis would not have been possible.

I also owe a special debt of gratitude to all the teachers in Foreign Languages Institute, from whose devoted teaching and enlightening lectures I have benefited a lot and academically prepared for the thesis.

I would finally like to express my gratitude to my beloved parents who have always been helping me out of difficulties and supporting me without a word of complaint.