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<blockquote data-quote="knasser" data-source="post: 7702337" data-attributes="member: 65151"><p>Yes it does. You're spot on. For a couple of reasons. Firstly we can no longer assume a genuine Christian belief in the reader, which Milton did. For Milton's original audience Satan was the bad guy, God and Jesus the good guys and supposedly there would be no notion that it could be otherwise. Therefore no matter the heroic qualities given to the character of Satan, it was not expected to change the role in the mind of the reader. Milton could, from his point of view, pile on any number of graces and positive attributes to the character of Satan and all it would do would be to make Satan a tragic character. The idea that it would actually make him a <em>redeemed</em> character is not something that Milton entertained. But with an audience stripped of fixed notions of good and evil, Satan begins to rise like a ping pong ball in a water jug as the character the audience empathises with and respects, in comparison to God and Jesus who mostly just pontificate on their virtues and Satan's foolishness. Relatedly, much of the criticism of Satan in the work comes directly from the mouths of God or Jesus or angels like Uriel and it probably never occurred to Milton that people would take the attitude that what God said could be just God's self-aggrandizing opinion rather than, well, the word of God! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> So once someone starts taking the part of Satan and growing sick of tedious passages by Jesus of how much better his dad is than Satan, it becomes very easy for someone to start dismissing what they say as impartial and unfair. Secondly, and this is no less important but quicker to say because you've already nailed it yourself - yes, the modern sensibility to value Will over Virtue was somewhat alien to Milton. To him, submission to God was an obvious good. To us, defiance against imposed power, is heroic. So TL;DR: you're right. The view has shifted due to changes of sensibility which is what I was getting at earlier when I wrote: "By modern sensibilities, that has the ring of a hero".</p><p></p><p>But one thing worth emphasizing is that by "modern sensibilities" I don't mean "since the 90's" or anything. William Blake in 1790 wrote that Milton was "of the Devil's party and did not know it". Percy Bysshe Shelley, a little before his death, wrote effusively on the heroic qualities of Milton's Satan. Robert Burnes, <em>(who was either one of the worst poets in history or one of the greatest comedians of his time <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></em> ) wrote of Milton's Satan: "“my favorite hero, Milton’s Satan,” and talked of his “dauntless magnanimity; the intrepid, unyielding independence; the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great Personage, Satan.” Milton was even credited as an inspiration amongst certain French Revolutionaries due to the heroic opposition of Satan against God. In summary, what I'm doing is violently agreeing with you and emphasizing to anyone who cares to read that what you say is not only true, but not only recently true. Milton's Satan as hero has a long pedigree and is the chief source of all Satan as Noble depictions shown since. Milton wrote through the mouthpiece of God or Jesus (I don't recall the passage) that Satan is that figure that aims at evil yet achieves only good. Which is high irony in that Milton aimed at glorying God and achieved the enoblement of the Devil.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="knasser, post: 7702337, member: 65151"] Yes it does. You're spot on. For a couple of reasons. Firstly we can no longer assume a genuine Christian belief in the reader, which Milton did. For Milton's original audience Satan was the bad guy, God and Jesus the good guys and supposedly there would be no notion that it could be otherwise. Therefore no matter the heroic qualities given to the character of Satan, it was not expected to change the role in the mind of the reader. Milton could, from his point of view, pile on any number of graces and positive attributes to the character of Satan and all it would do would be to make Satan a tragic character. The idea that it would actually make him a [I]redeemed[/I] character is not something that Milton entertained. But with an audience stripped of fixed notions of good and evil, Satan begins to rise like a ping pong ball in a water jug as the character the audience empathises with and respects, in comparison to God and Jesus who mostly just pontificate on their virtues and Satan's foolishness. Relatedly, much of the criticism of Satan in the work comes directly from the mouths of God or Jesus or angels like Uriel and it probably never occurred to Milton that people would take the attitude that what God said could be just God's self-aggrandizing opinion rather than, well, the word of God! ;) So once someone starts taking the part of Satan and growing sick of tedious passages by Jesus of how much better his dad is than Satan, it becomes very easy for someone to start dismissing what they say as impartial and unfair. Secondly, and this is no less important but quicker to say because you've already nailed it yourself - yes, the modern sensibility to value Will over Virtue was somewhat alien to Milton. To him, submission to God was an obvious good. To us, defiance against imposed power, is heroic. So TL;DR: you're right. The view has shifted due to changes of sensibility which is what I was getting at earlier when I wrote: "By modern sensibilities, that has the ring of a hero". But one thing worth emphasizing is that by "modern sensibilities" I don't mean "since the 90's" or anything. William Blake in 1790 wrote that Milton was "of the Devil's party and did not know it". Percy Bysshe Shelley, a little before his death, wrote effusively on the heroic qualities of Milton's Satan. Robert Burnes, [I](who was either one of the worst poets in history or one of the greatest comedians of his time ;)[/I] ) wrote of Milton's Satan: "“my favorite hero, Milton’s Satan,” and talked of his “dauntless magnanimity; the intrepid, unyielding independence; the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great Personage, Satan.” Milton was even credited as an inspiration amongst certain French Revolutionaries due to the heroic opposition of Satan against God. In summary, what I'm doing is violently agreeing with you and emphasizing to anyone who cares to read that what you say is not only true, but not only recently true. Milton's Satan as hero has a long pedigree and is the chief source of all Satan as Noble depictions shown since. Milton wrote through the mouthpiece of God or Jesus (I don't recall the passage) that Satan is that figure that aims at evil yet achieves only good. Which is high irony in that Milton aimed at glorying God and achieved the enoblement of the Devil. [/QUOTE]
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