Satan in Paradaise Lost and Dantes Inferno - 1138 Words

After God created the Earth and mankind, all was right in the Holy kingdom. That is until, a friend, the bearer of light, the morning star fell in battle and ultimately in darkness. This fateful battle made true everything we know and live now. Milton and Dante play on this every concept in two very different ways, for Milton a cunning reflection of man and for Dante an animalisitic dunce. Milton and Dante use the Bible stories as a backdrop for their epic poems of love and of loss wherein a single unique character, a bearer of light is made to reverberate humanity and the supreme basic darkness that is the soul of man, one can note these key elements vis-a-vis his appearance, domain and the influence of Lucifer. Since the every†¦show more content†¦This creates a complexity on the subject of man being born in neutrality and the ability to blame evil on the Devil. If Lucifer is truly trapped in ice and has been since he fall from grace, then what of mans natural desire to be evil. In the eyes of Dante this would be entirely mans fault wherein blame can only be pasted to man. Milton however has taken the chalice from man and made it clear that Lucifer was and is a great cause of mans dilapidated relationship with God. Finally, one pictures the great devil, Satan as an atrocious influencer of man and as a cunning mastermind. However this is the greatest difference between Paradise Lost and Inferno. In Paradise Lost the devil is able to leave his dominion of hell and eventually influence mans relationship with God. This demonstrates Lucifers intelligence and defiance of God. This can be very clearly seen in the book of Job, where God and Lucifer are communicating and making a bid of sorts. This is very different from Dantes Lucifer whom is portrayed as an animalistic and basic intellect, as he is â€Å"unable to speak.† (Corsetti 1) This is drawn from the act of chewing, which in itself is very animalistic which leads to a degraded mental copasitly. This almost: â€Å"dehumanises Satan and empathises the issues of the different levels (intellectual, animalistic and vegetative) of the soul.† (Corsetti