Bonds of Liberty Sunny Hwang

"...[F]rom what state

I fell, how glorious once above [the Sun's] sphere;

Till pride and worse ambition threw me down

Warring in Heav'n against Heav'n's matchless King:

Ah wherefore! He deserved no such return

From me, whom he created what I was

In that bright eminence, and with his good

Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.

What could be less than to afford him praise,

The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks,

How due! Yet all his good proved ill in me,

And wrought but malice; lifted up so high

I sdained subjection, and thought one step higher

Would set me highest, and in a moment quit

The debt immense of endless gratitude,

So burdensome, still paying, still to owe..."

(Paradise Lost, IV. 38-53)

In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan is presented in an innovative manner; he is seen from an entirely new perspective. He is not the thoroughly evil embodiment of depravity, which he had previously been depicted as, but rather a character with whom readers can sympathize and relate. Satan is clearly the principal character in the opening books of this epic poem, but in Book IV, Milton begins to delve even more deeply into Satan's psyche, and Satan becomes a character with whom the reader is increasingly apt to...