Explaining Satan

Paradise Lost is a paradox. In the poem, God is a trickster, a sadist, the creator of pain, while Satan and his minions appear heroic and noble. Two and a half centuries of criticism ignore these blasphemies and heresies but modern critics cannot. How, they ask, could this great Puritan bible scholar, author of De Doctrina Christiana, have created this attractive and charismatic Satan? Twentieth-century criticism of Milton's epic poem has focused on clearing up these contradictions and rehabilitating Milton as a Christian; in this process they do the poet and the work a disservice. Paradise Lost is not a Sunday school lesson. In Professor Rogers' book the ambiguities are restored, and the critics are criticized.