/lit/ - Literature

Ok, cool

Isn't Satan the hero? It's supposed to endorse good Christian morals, but I heard Satan was intentionally written to be the most charismatic and sympathetic character.

>>2667260

He is, yes. He is also damned, miserable and regretful. Basically, his is the first act of disobedience before God, and due to this break he ceases being innocent. Then he corrupts man, to be in his own image, but God absolves humankind due to that fact that man chose not on his own volition, but due to Satan's influence. I'm halfway through. What I don't understand, however, is how Satan comes to be corrupt, ambitious and hungry for power in the first place. God gives him choice, but I still don't understand how he comes to think of waging war in what is Paradise and should be devoid of sin.

It kind of annoys me when people think Lucifer, the Devil, and Satan are the same thing, and it's partly Milton's fault.

>>2667293
T-they're not?

>>2667275

Here is Book 4, ll. 505-511
Satan, after happening upon Adam and Eve in Paradise:

"Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two
Imparadised in one another's arms
The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill
Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell am thrust,
Where neither joy, not love, but fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the least,
Still unfulfilled with pain of longing pines..."

At an earlier passage he admits his weakness outside of hell and laments the fact that even psychologically he cannot return to heaven (as soon as he would be restored, he would forget himself and become ambitious again). Furthermore, his hell's kingdom is illustrated as naught but a prison, a place of banishment and exile, wherein God still maintains dominion.

Maybe this is all subverted later on though, I dunno...

Milton's skill as a poet is otherworldly though.

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>>2667275

From what I remember of my religious days Satan refused to bow down to humans, who he viewed as inferior and so went him and his followers to hell.

Why do the s's look like f's?

>>2667293

i've always seen them as completely different beings.

>>2667298

Nope. (Ha)Satan is "The Accuser", an Angel that acts as a prosecutor in God's "court" (see: Job). Lucifer is just some name for some Middle-Eastern (Babylonian, I think) King who thought he was hot shit. The Devil is an actually malevolent (but sometimes bumbling, as in The Devil and Daniel Webster) entity, mostly a folk-tradition character that's a kind of personification of evil or the King of evil beings. Also, the snake in Eden? Just a snake. Just a tempter (which makes him A devil and a Satan in a way, but in function only). They are not one thing.

>>2667304
>Satan
>For most Christians, he is believed to be an angel who rebelled against God
>His pride is considered a reason why he would not bow to God as all other angels did, but sought to rule heaven himself.
>wikipedia

5/10

>>2667307

Can you even into Middle English?

>>2667319

Dude take a chill pill I already said I was going off memory. There is no reason to try and be confrontational just cause I got my facts mixed up.

I'm not into that God shit...what's the difference between Satan, Lilith, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub and Lucifer?

>>2667260
Satan is the EPIC hero of an (anti-) epic poem. Not a "hero" in the way you're thinking.

>>2667307

>mfw standard English today is Chinese compared to what it was in, say, 600AD
>mfw language evolves
>mfw 17th century
>mfw this is /lit/

>>2667326

Sorry, I thought you were trolling.

>>2667248
Fuck off

It's like /lit/ can't hold a discussion on their own without someone asking them anything. Shit like this is what makes this the most asperger infested board out of all the others. Autism isn't as severe as the shit as I've seen here.

ParadiſeLoſt-
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>>2667304
>>2667319
No, Anon is onto something. Satan's original sin of not bowing to Adam is an Islamic tradition.

>>2667275
It depends on who you ask. For most commentators, like Stanley Fish, Satan's sin is inexplicable. Why does Satan refuse to bow to the Son's lordship? Well, why do any of us do the evil things we do? It's just in our nature to defy authority and be proud.

On the other hand, William Empson comes to a novel reading of the poem: Satan's disagreement with God is essentially a political disagreement: Satan had his own title and eminence, but the Father inexplicably took it away from him and subordinated all the angels to the Son. The Father did not respect the arrangements and the wishes of his angels. This reading has particular resonance when one remembers that the English rebelled against Charles I when he overstepped traditional English laws and institutions in order to arrogate to himself absolute power.

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