Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost: Hero, Villain, or Anti-Hero?

Introduction: Paradise Lost and Its Central Controversy

Unlike Dante Alighieri's Inferno—a vivid, sensory physical description of Hell (Alighieri, 2003)—Paradise Lost by John Milton is also a comprehensive description of the process of the creation of the Universe (Milton and Bentley, 1974). In the latter case, however, man is at the center of events. Paradise Lost is a poem of personalities: God's, Satan's, Sin's, Death's, Jesus Christ's (the Son), and Adam and Eve's. The epic poem has been severely criticized by scholars who argue that Satan has been given a prominence he does not deserve (Hamilton, 1977).

Blake's Critique and the Problem of Satan's Prominence

The most severe criticism comes from William Blake in the prosaic sections of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Blake, 1994). Blake's accusatory tone goes so far as to suggest that, although there might be hints of poetic license in how Milton created the character of Satan, Milton may have been operating as a vessel of Satan himself. The exact quotation is: "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and Gods, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's Party without knowing it." Strong words indeed.

One might argue that in portraying the Devil, Milton was being true to what was written in the Bible. After all, Ezekiel 28:15 states: "You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you." This passage shows that Satan was first created as an archangel with all the powers of that rank, but that iniquities eventually entered into him. The expectation in any religious narrative is that good and evil both exist, and that good eventually triumphs over evil. The problem that Blake and many others have is rooted in the degree of power Milton grants to Satan's character. Blake also complains that the description of the Messiah is ambiguous: the name is applied both to the archangel who would become Satan and to Jesus Christ.

Satan as Anti-Hero and Rebel

Milton's Satan functions as the antagonist or anti-hero of the poem. Anti-heroes in most epics are regarded as rebels and garner a measure of sympathy from readers. Milton's Satan is shown as possessing a similar self-awareness in the long soliloquy in Book IV of Paradise Lost (IV:32–113). Consider the following extract:

Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heavn'n.
O then at last, relent is there no place
Left for Repentance, none for Pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath (IV.75–83)

In a sense, Satan's malfeasance can be construed—as the narrative is developed by Milton—as rebellious because Satan was created within a hierarchy of unequal rank and power. The archangel did not accept the justification for that inequality. Milton's Satan is thus not simply a villain but a figure whose defiance carries genuine psychological weight, making him one of the most complex characters in English literary history.