This Sunday night’s poem is John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In Dante’s Inferno, Satan was a mute monster. Milton gave that monster a voice, and inadvertently pioneered the path that eventually led to “sexy Satan.” Here, after rebelling against God and being cast down into a fiery lake, Satan prepares for further battle. If you watched The Sandman on Netflix, you may wish to imagine Gwendoline Christie delivering this speech:
Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime, Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right: fardest from him his best Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time. The mind is its own place, and in it self Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less then he Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n. But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, Th’ associates and copartners of our loss Lye thus astonisht on th’ oblivious Pool, And call them not to share with us their part In this unhappy Mansion, or once more With rallied Arms to try what may be yet Regaind in Heav’n, or what more lost in Hell?
Not only was Milton a tremendously influential poet, he also was very politically active, including opposing King Charles I and writing various essays justifying his execution; he also served in the Commonwealth government, and was briefly jailed when Charles II restored the monarchy.
If you’d like to read more
Paradise Lost was originally published in 1667 as ten “books,” with a later edition published in 1674 (the year of Milton’s death) that restructured the poem into twelve books. Most reprints are of the 1674 second edition, but I’ve also included links below to the 1667 first edition.
- Poetry Foundation: Biography and selected poems of John Milton, including Book I of Paradise Lost (1674 edition), from which the excerpt above is taken.
- Internet Archive:
- Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The text exactly reproduced from the first edition of 1667. A facsimile of the 1667 edition.
- “Paradise Lost: A Poem Written in Ten Books”: An Authoritative Text of the 1667 First Edition, edited by John T. Shawcross and Michael Lieb. A more readable version of the first edition.
- Bookshop.org: Paradise Lost (Revised), edited by John Leonard. This is the 1674 second edition.
- Other:
- Project Gutenberg: The original 10-book edition of Paradise Lost (1667) and the later 12-book edition of 1674.
- Standard Ebooks: EPUB and Kindle versions of Paradise Lost, edited by A. W. Verity. This is the 1674 edition.