Concetti Chiave
- Satan's speech in "Paradise Lost" portrays him as both an antihero and an epic hero, highlighting his courage and leadership qualities.
- He compares Hell's mournful gloom with Heaven's celestial light, reflecting on his fall and his new domain.
- Satan asserts his own abilities as comparable to God's, despite lacking divine powers, showing his defiant nature.
- He embraces his role as master of Hell, expressing the belief that one can control their own mindset and perspective.
- The text employs literary devices like antithesis, alliteration, assonance, and chiasmus to enhance its thematic contrasts.
Commento "Satan's speech" di J. Milton
"Satan's speech" is a passage taken from the epic poem Paradise Lost written by Milton and it is about Satan's arrival in his new kingdom, Hell, after he rebelled against God. Satan is the antihero, a negative character, bit in the first and second books he has the characteristic of an epic hero: courage, initiative, leadership.In the first part of the text, Satan shows his reaction to the sight of Hell,
compares it to Heaven and then he compares himself to God. In the first lines, Satan asks if that will be his eternal reign and then makes a comparison between Heaven with its celestial light (l 4) and Hell, with its mournful gloom (l 3). After this, Satan compares himself to God saying that the two of them have the same abilities, the only difference is that God has powers that Satan hasn't (ll 5-8). Once he accepted his situation, he says goodbye to the happy fields of Heaven and hails Hell (ll 9-10) and talking about himself, he says that now he is the master of that land, a person who won't change his mind. In the end, he says that a person is the master of his own mind and that he can live things in different ways (ll 11-14).
In the second part of the text, Satan realizes that after all is better to be the master of himself in Hell than a servant in Heaven (l 22) and that he and the other fallen angels could rise again against God to try to regain what they lost or just be punished again (ll 27-30).
This text is built on the antithesis between the light of Heaven ( l 4 "celestial light", l 8 "happy fields") and the dark of Hell ( l 3 "mournful gloom", l 10 "infernal world"). There are figures of speech such as alliteration of the letter f in line 8, assonance in line 9 ( hail horrors), run on lines ( ll 1-2; ll 2-3); end-stopped lines ( l 1; l 2) and also a chiasm in line 14 ( a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n).
Domande da interrogazione
- Quali sono le caratteristiche di Satana nel discorso di Milton?
- Come Satana percepisce il confronto tra Cielo e Inferno?
- Qual è la riflessione finale di Satana riguardo alla sua situazione?
Nel discorso di Milton, Satana è presentato come un anti-eroe con caratteristiche di un eroe epico, come coraggio, iniziativa e leadership, nonostante sia un personaggio negativo.
Satana confronta il Cielo con la sua luce celestiale e l'Inferno con la sua oscurità lugubre, accettando infine la sua nuova condizione e proclamandosi padrone dell'Inferno.
Satana conclude che è meglio essere padrone di se stesso all'Inferno piuttosto che servitore in Cielo, e considera la possibilità di ribellarsi nuovamente contro Dio.
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