Chapter Themes of Paradise Lost - Study Guide by John Milton

The action consists of deeds of great valor or requiring superhuman courage;

· Supernatural forces – gods, angels, demons - interest themselves in the action and intervene from time to time;

· A style of sustained elevation and grand simplicity is used;

· The epic poet recounts the deeds of his heroes with objectivity.

Some common devices or conventions used by most epic poets:

· the poet opens by stating his theme, invokes a Muse to inspire and instruct him, and opens his narrative in medias res giving the necessary exposition in later portions of the epic;

· he includes catalogues of warriors, ships, armies;

· he gives extended formal speeches by the main characters;

· he makes frequent use of the epic simile

That the characteristics noted above are present and identifiable in Milton’s poem is certain. Furthermore through the manipulation of some of these epic characteristics and conventions Milton offers his reader some of the most controversial and interesting questions and situations in the poem. One of the most formidable problems that the reader must face is that of hero; exactly who is the epic hero of Paradise Lost?

Since the eighteenth century, for a number of readers, Milton's devil has been interpreted as a much stronger character than his God, and his image of Hell far more forceful than his picture of Heaven. This is misleading, inferring that the Hell scenes must be more 'sincere' than the descriptions of Heaven. They conclude, with Dryden, that Satan must be the real 'hero' of Paradise Lost. It is not to Satan that the mantle of hero falls; in the language of Renaissance criticism, Adam – the central figure in the poem – is clearly the 'epic person' or 'primary hero'. Going a step further, in supplying Satan with many of the conventional attributes of the epic hero, Milton indirectly censures the epic tradition for celebrating vice as heroic virtue. Milton relies on a reductio ad absurdum to discredit a spurious conception of heroism.

F.C. Blessington adds an interesting note to the discussion when she calls Satan not a classical hero but a classical villain:

"Satan is made the archetype of the sophistical rhetoric, the shallow egotism, and the destructive pride, the vices of the classical epic as well as of the classical world. In addition, he is the perversion of classical heroic virtues. He often begins by resembling a victim, sometimes even a perversion of that . . . . [He is] not a classical hero but a classical villain who unheroically defeats creatures far below him in stature."

Steadman concurs,