The Key to Paradise Lost, or One Nominal Theory on the Issue of the Hero of the Epic

I do not know that I have found the key to understanding Paradise Lost. Maybe. The title of the post is a nod to the wonderful pedantic Edward Causabon of Middlemarch, whose life's work was to be The Key to All Mythologies. Unfortunately for the world, Dr. Causabon died, victim to the harshness of George Eliot's pen, before he could complete his tome and enlighten the world.

In general I am leery of theories or claims that are as absolute as "the key to this" or "the until now overlooked aspect of that." People who make claims like that are mistaking boldness in rhetoric for boldness in thought. That large caveat aside, in my Scripture reading the other day I did come across a verse that can function, while perhaps not the key, at least a very useful lens for adjudicating the great Satan debate in Paradise Lost. 

For those of you further down on the nerd scale, the debate basically centers around the hero of Paradise Lost. PL is an epic and all epics come equipped with a hero. The Iliad has Achilles. The Odyssey has Odysseus. The Aeneid has Aeneas. But Milton doesn't have a straightforward hero. People who enjoy controversy and quite literally playing the devil's advocate claim Satan as the hero. William Blake, a great reader of Milton and wonderfully visual poet, wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that "Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it." 

A straightforward, maybe simplistic, reading of the poem can lead to this conclusion. Satan has all the best speeches. He is defiant and brave. "To reign is worth ambition though in hell/ Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." That is a great line. He refuses to accept defeat after literally waking up in hell. In other words, of all the characters in the epic Satan most embodies the classical traits of the hero. 

But maybe Milton didn't want a classical hero. Maybe, in fact, he was sending up the ideals embodied by the classical hero. I have long sensed this as I have engaged with the poem, but in reading Romans 2 the other day it was brought home in a different way. Here is the text:

"He will render to each according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." (Romans 2:6-8 ESV)

The classic course of the hero was to seek glory and honor and immortality. It was why Achilles went to Troy. But there is nothing more antithetical to the classical notion of heroism than the idea that glory and honor and immortality are achieved through "patience in well-doing." Glory and honor and immortality, for the ancients, had to be grasped at, struggled for; you had to do bold things and risk daringly, like Satan in Paradise Lost. But for the Christian we live patiently and do the good works God has prepared for us in Christ. A bit less grandiose. Not too many three hour blockbusters made about a Christian businessman living a patient life of good works in his suburban community.

But the quest for the Christian is different. What we need to do has already been done in Christ. Our job is to use the faith we have been given to endure. To finish the race. To continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that we heard. My ambitions when I was younger were for grand things. To change the world. To die a glorious martyr for Christ. Now my goals have changed. Life is long, the race is hard, and I just want to make it. When all hell breaks loose in this world and in my life, I want to stand.

I think Milton was on to this in setting Satan up as the most heroic character in the epic. If heroism leads to being Satan then what value is there in that type of heroism? Better to be patient. Better to endure. Better to live out good works. Better to, as Milton puts it in another poem, "only stand and wait."