Satan’s party?

In her introduction to a new edition of Paradise Lost (Blackwell), Barbara Lewalski notes the oddness of Milton’s epic protagonists and setting. Citing the Proem to Book 9, she writes that Milton “has indeed given over the traditional epic subject, wars and empire, and the tradition epic hero as the epitome of courage and battle prowess. His protagonists are a domestic pair, the scene of their action is a pastoral garden, and their primary challenge is, ‘under long obedience tried,’ to make themselves, their marital relationship, and their garden – the nucleus of the human world – ever more perfect.”

Meanwhile, he describes Satan “in terms of constant allusions to the greatest heroes – Achilles, Odysseus, Aeneas, Prometheus, and others – in regard to the usual epic traits: physical prowess, battle courage, anger, fortitude, determination, endurance, leadership and aristeia or battle glory.” Milton this “engages readers in a poem-long exploration and redefinition of heroes and heroism, often by inviting them to discover how Satan in some ways exemplifies but in essence perverts these classical models.”

Milton’s aim in both of these respects is to encourage “readers to measure all other versions of the heroic against the self-sacrificing love of the Son of God, the moral courage of Abdiel, and the ‘better fortitude’ of several biblical heroes of faith.”