Chapter Characters of Paradise Lost - Study Guide by John Milton

Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse

We can create"

(II.249-60)

His concept of self-sufficiency is derived from Aristotle. Mammon’s vision of the future runs along Sallustian lines: adversity gives way to prosperity, "great things" develop out of "small". The contrast of "Hard liberty" against "easy yoke" also comes from a speech in Sallust. The proposal is flawed however. The fallen angels are of course accountable to God. Beelzebub reverses the ‘popular vote’ to favour Satan’s own "bold design" to subvert Mammon. Furthermore, Mammon does not mention what could only give his scheme any chance of success, the virtues. The outcome is that a republican ‘moment’ gives way to the adventure of an individual. This part of the debate in Hell is a reenactment of events of the 1650s when Cromwell become Lord Protector after acceding to the constitutional blueprint, the Instruments of Government in 1653. It has thus been interpreted as Milton’s verdict on the experiment with classical republicanism in England.

However, Satan’s ungodly republicanism is to be differentiated from that of the godly saints of the English Revolution, who were adamant that God alone is king. Satan and his following in hell are identifiable however (as discussed above) with the abuses earthly kingship.

Anti-Monarchical Views in

Paradise Lost

Recently the critic William Myers wrote "It makes… sense to see Milton as an unconscious monarchist … and adherent without knowing it, not of the Devil’s, but of the king’s party. There are certainly passages in Paradise Lost which invite a royalist interpretation." This line of interpretation of governmental forms in Paradise Lost is by no means new; long ago critics were deliberating over the interpretation of political allusions in the poem.

On the contrary, Milton’s treatment of God’s kingship and Satan’s rebellion are complementary elements in his republican strategy, i.e. monarchy in Heaven justifies republicanism on Earth. It is hardly a novel observation that for Satan’s justification of the rebellion in Books V and VI, Milton used arguments he had made in earlier political tracts. It is his consideration of monarchy that military heroism is given political expression in Paradise Lost.

Satan’s ambition "To set himself in glory above his peers" is the very aspiration to monarchy that Milton derided in The Readie and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660). The opening of Book II tells us that, "High on a throne of royal state. . . Satan exalted sat". The heroic attribute of Satan’s pride is identified with "monarchical pride" during the course of the parliament in Book II. This pride is the very quality, a precondition, that leads the classical heroic warrior to be brave and courageous, and thus to victory. The cloistered devils of Pandemonium pay idolatrous homage Satan

"Towards him they bend

With awful reverence prone; and as a God

Extol him equal to the highest in Heav’n."

(II.477-9)