Satan’s Meditation on Knowledge and its Power in Book IV of Paradise Lost Megan Schaffner College

Densely populated with similes, allusions, and speeches, John Milton’s Paradise Lost takes Satan’s fall from Heaven and expands it into a meditation on hierarchy, knowledge, and power. Though Satan’s main vendetta against God is established in his addresses to the other devils, his deeper thoughts are unfolded in his pensive soliloquies through his questions and conflicts. When he first sees Adam and Eve, he marvels at their beauty, but ultimately decides that he will use them as pawns in his plan to restore Creation to Chaos and Night. As he sees the “loveliest pair” (4.321) a second time, Satan listens to their exchanges and further considers his plot. This second soliloquy reveals more than just a desire for revenge; Satan uses his observations to question the state of Paradise and furthermore doubt the security of God’s status. Milton shows this process in three movements: an initial feeling of rage and jealousy, a following period of questions and speculation, and a final moment of conclusion; he relies heavily on caesuras and the stresses of iambic pentameter, as well as double meanings and questions, to convey Satan’s meditation. Through this progression, Satan considers the idea of knowledge and its relation to power,...