Satan Qualities Miton’s Paradise Lost 1

What picture of Satan do you get from Book I of Paradise Lost?

Does Satan attain heroic dimensions in Book I of Paradise Lost?
Or
"But he (Satan) is a figure of heroic magnitude and heroic energy, and he is developed by Milton with dramatic intensity." Discuss this view with reference to Book I of Paradise Lost.
Or
In writing Paradise Lost, Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it. Comment on this view, keeping in mind Book I of the poem.
Or
Bring out the heroic qualities of Milton's Satan from Book I.

It was Blake who said that, in writing Paradise Lost, Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it. He expressed this opinion chiefly in relation to the portrayal of Satan who, according to him, has been depicted as a character possessing certain grand qualities worthy of the highest admiration. Other romantic critics supported this view with great enthusiasm. Shelley, for instance, said that nothing could exceed the energy and magnificence of Satan as expressed in Paradise Lost. According to Shelley, it was a mistake to think that Satan was intended by Milton as the popular personification of evil. This argument is still very much alive today.
We have, however, to confine our attention to Book I. There is no doubt that, in Book I, Milton has endowed Satan with certain attributes which are worthy of epic heroes and which make him a sympathetic, almost tragic, character. The very descriptions of Satan's physical dimensions and the size of the tools he carries mark him out as a kind of hero. His limbs are long and large; his bulk is as huge as that of the Titan who fought against Jove, or that of Leviathan which God of all His works created hugest that swim the ocean-stream. He has a mighty stature so that, when he rises, the flames on both sides of him are driven backward and roll in bellows. He carries a ponderous, massy, and large shield on his shoulder. This shield is compared to the moon as seen through a telescope. His spear is so big that the tallest pine tree would be but a wand by comparison. When he addresses his followers, he stands like a tower, proudly eminent in shape and gesture. His form has not yet lost all its original brightness. Even in his present state, he looks like the sun peeping through the misty air or the sun in dim eclipse. "Darkened so, yet shone above them all the Archangel" These pictures of Satan are reminiscent of the heroes of the Ilind and the Odyssey. Then there is his strong intelligence, his inflexible resolve, his exceptional will-power, and his dauntless courage. These qualities too stamp him as a hero and lend him a certain nobility. In his first speech, he tells Beelzebub that he is not at all repentant of what he did and that his defeat has brought about no change in him. And he speaks the following memorable lines:

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost: the unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.

He will never submit to God but is resolved "to wage by force or guile eternal war" against the foe with whom he will never seek a reconciliation. He shows his heroic calibre in greeting the horrors of the infernal world. He calls himself the new possessor of profoundest Hell and claims to have a mind not to be changed by place or time. And he defines the power of the mind in lines which have become famous:

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

Combined with these great qualities is his love of freedom speaking about which he becomes most eloquent. He may be in Hell but, he says, he will here at least be free. His love of freedom too finds utterance in unforgettable language:

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

He rouses his followers from their stupor by a stirring call. He asks them to renounce their abject posture and to wake up from their slumber.

Satan gives evidence of undoubted qualities of leadership worthy of an epic hero. Beelzebub tells him that his voice is the liveliest pledge of hope for his followers when they face danger. His followers have heard that voice often, "in worst extremes, and on the perilous edge of battle when it raged". His words will at once infuse a new courage in them. And Beelzebub proves to be right in arousing his followers from their "astonishment", Satan uses various devices: he makes a promise to them: he utters a warning to them, and he gives them a threat. In his address to them afterwards, he flatters them by referring to them as puissant legions and saying that no power could defeat them. He calls for a declaration of war, and millions of flaming swords flash in the air in response to his call. His sway over his followers is complete and unquestioned. His rhetoric and grandiloquence have the desired effect on them. He employs subtle arguments which carry conviction with them. At his command, his mighty flag is unfurled and upraised. As he surveys the war-like angels, arrayed in battle order, his heart distends with pride, and he glories in his strength.
Satan is not altogether callous in trying to attain his selfish ends. In spite of all his pride and obduracy, he is not devoid of feeling. Even when his eyes show cruelty, he is feeling pity for the sad plight of those who have Jost Heaven because of his revolt. Three times he attempts speech and three times he feels choked by his tears of sorrow. Even when he does speak, the words come out of his mouth with sighs closely mingled with them. There is much pathos in this description. Satan here appears to be almost a tragic hero. We are greatly touched by the contrast between what he was and what he has been reduced to. We are moved by his plight as he is moved by the plight of his followers.
In view of these qualities it would either be short-sighted or perverse to deny heroic dimensions to Satan. Most of us are likely to thrill to Satan's high-sounding speeches on the themes of honour, revenge, and freedom. When he speaks of his high disdain and his sense of injured merit, we are likely to sympathise with him. His farewell to the happy fields of Heaven is also a pathetic touch. His claim to equality with God as regards the faculty of reason and his admission of God's superiority only on the basis of God's weapon of thunder also bespeak Satan's great self-confidence. His very revolt against God is an act of daring and one that fills us with awe.
In spite of all this, Satan does not produce an impression of true heroism. From the moral point of view, he is essentially degraded. The very first reference to him projects his moral situation without any ambiguity. Satan here is already the "infernal Serpent". And, in giving a brief account of Satan's revolt against God, Milton expresses a great contempt for him. He calls Satan's war against God "impious" and "vain". Satan, he says, was prompted in his revolt by his feelings of "pride", "envy", and "revenge". He was accordingly hurled headlong down to "bottomless perdition", there to dwell "in adamantine chains and penal fire" for having defied the Omnipotent. Milton, at the very outset, leaves us in no doubt what he thinks of Satan. And yet critics have come forward to claim that Satan is the hero of Milton's poem.
There is also the view that Milton was unconsciously exalting and deifying Satan though consciously denigrating and degrading him. But a scrutiny of Satan's speeches shows that even this view is not justified. The very first speech of Satan arouses horror and repulsion in us. It is a dramatic revelation of nothing but egoistic pride and passion, of complete spiritual blindness. Satan's description of God as the "potent victor in his rage" is perverse. Nothing that the victor can inflict on him will make Satan "repent or change." This phrase is a rejection of all Christian teaching. Satan's "sense of injured merit" merely shows his self-conceit. Satan only sees a conflict between himself and a temporarily superior force. He cannot see that it is a conflict between good and evil. No matter how impressed we may feel by his high-sounding phrases, the fact remains that his insistence on revenge and his declaration of immortal hate brand him as an evil force whom we despise. That one line "And study of revenge, immortal hate" is enough to demolish his claims to our respect. In his second speech, his evil side receives further emphasis. He is determined never to do any good but always to do ill as being "the contrary to God's will". He will exert himself to the utmost to thwart the aims of God and "out of good still to find means of evil". Even his much-vaunted courage diminishes in our eyes when we find him taking full advantage of God's suspension of his "ministers of vengeance and pursuit" and the cessation of God's thunder. In any case, revenge and hatred are not admirable by any criterion.
Satan's third speech is no doubt impressive, as already indicated. But critics have pointed out that Milton has introduced much irony in Satan's rhetoric. We are reminded here of the reply of Mephistopheles to Faustus in Marlowe's play: "Why. this is hell, nor am I out of it". As for the ringing line: "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven", it has a certain Byronic appeal. But, if Heaven is good and Hell is evil, then it is quite simply not better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.
Satan's address to the fallen angels is a war-like speech which is, if examined closely, full of contradictions and absurdities. Satan tries to throw dust into the eyes of his followers, firstly by claiming that they are invincible, secondly by asserting that they can repossess Heaven, and thirdly by feigning that God's full strength was not previously known to him or to others. On one hand he says that they will not provoke war and, on the other, he renounces peace which is possible only through submission. And he closes the speech with a declaration of war: "war open or understood".
We therefore agree with the critic who said: "There is neither truth nor wit in saying that Satan is the hero of the piece unless he is the greatest hero who gives the widest sway to the worst passions." Nor is there any here, as is often alleged, between Milton's intention and the result Satan conflict is not only a rebel but a tyrant. His words show how far he is from understanding true liberty. He has heroic qualities, as we have already seen. He is brave, strong, generous, loyal, prudent, temperate, and self- sacrificing. But if he has heroic virtues, so has Macbeth; and Macbeth is a villain. The reason why Milton has endowed Satan with these heroic qualities is that an adversary of God had to be of massive dramatic stature and that the power that was to seduce Eve must have an impressive personality and character. The misinterpretation arises from the tendency in human nature to romanticism the rebel and the fighter against odds. Satan's heroism is false heroism because it is based on false beliefs and unworthy aims. False heroism has its dramatic side, and a certain interest. There is no doubt that Milton has used his poetic and dramatic powers to the full in portraying Satan. But that was natural. Milton felt inspired by Satan, and it is always much easier to create evil characters than ideally goods ones.