Paradise Lost

As we know, epic poems are characterized by a formal, elevated style, and Milton’s Paradise Lost contains perhaps one of the most elevated stylistic writing of all the epic poems. I found it interesting to note that the organization of Milton’s epic poem was in 12 books, similarly to Virgil’s The Aeneid, and I believe that Milton must have copied this organization, a tradition begun by Homer’s epics, to create his own. In class we learned that epics were more than simply narratives, they are also a reflection and celebration of the particular culture that wrote it. Thus, Milton’s narrative of the Fall of Man and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden is not a mere retelling of the biblical story, it is also Milton’s vision of the entirety of humanity; philosophy, theology, and other essential features that reflect our universe.

I am particularly interested in the depiction of Satan, as many readers are. Despite his fallen position and slow metamorphosis into more demonic forms throughout the poem, Lucifer is a charismatic figure and a very complicated character. His enigmatic person is reflected in his addresses to the other demons:

What Though the field be lost?
All is not lost: the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what else is not to be overcome? (I. 106-109)


And in subsequent moments, we see that the demons respond well to his speeches:

He spake, and, to confirm his words, out flew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty cherubim, the sudden blaze
Far round illumined Hell. Highly they raged
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms,
Clashed on their sounds shield the din of war.
Hurling defiance tward the vault of Heaven (I. 663-669)

The ingenious of Milton’s decision to depict Satan as both the antagonist and the anti-hero in this way, instead of merely the antagonist, serves to create a conflict in the reader that furthers Milton’s moral imperatives. As Satan seduces the demons, we become seduced by Satan as readers, and begin to sympathize with him. This is Milton’s way of warning us of the dangers of temptation, and using his poem to create it in this way is quite clever.

Dante's Inferno: The Film (2007)

The film version of Dante’s Inferno certainly did justice to the epic. Since Dante’s poem depicted the society of his Italy and showed real figures receiving punishment, it was only fitting that this film version appropriated modern figures and politicians from our more recent history to populate Hell with. Virgil’s explanations to Dante within the film support and drive Dante’s moral imperative of God’s perfect justice, and explains the nature of the sins and punishments that they come across.

Is this an epic film, like El Cid? I am not certain that this film’s being based upon an epic necessarily makes it an epic film in itself. For one thing, the length of the film is not epic in scope, at 88 minutes, it is much shorter than the epic film we watched in class, El Cid. In fact, certain parts of Hell felt rushed compared to the poem. The first six circles of Hell are zipped through within the first thirty minutes of the film, and than it spends nearly the entire rest of the film on the last three levels of Hell. I agree that this was necessary for the film’s length, however it is a stark difference to the Cantos within Dante’s poem which do not vary dramatically in length.

The animation was enjoyable. Choosing to film it using stick puppets lent an aesthetically absurdist quality, which is fitting given that the territory explored in the film is Hell. The decision to depict Dante’s character as a bit of a drunken loser worked well too. Since in the poem, Dante declares:

Halfway through the story of my life
I came to in a gloomy wood, because
I’d wandered off the path, away from the light. (Canto I.1-3).

The path is an allegory for the path to righteousness and God’s grace. “Away from the light” refers to God’s light, and Heaven. So though Dante does not specify how he veered from his path and sinned, the film certainly gives us one possibility.

Dante's Inferno

I am continually fascinated by the ways in which epic poets from the Middle Ages were able to appropriate references and features of the epic poems of antiquity and incorporate them into serving their own moral imperative. As an epic, Dante’s Inferno contains a Hell populated by countless figures of Greek and Roman myth, including Odysseus and various Titans. Dante’s Inferno seems to be an epic exploration of his belief system and the strict moral doctrines of the Catholic church of his time. It is often called an allegory, and I was quite amused to find Dante himself calling it his poem an allegory within:

Men of sound intellect and probity,
weigh with good understanding what lies hidden
behind the veil of my strange allegory. (Canto IX.58-60)

Clearly, he is writing this poem to push both his moral and political imperatives.

Although it has been much analyzed, Dante’s morality based upon obedience to God as a paradigm makes the degree of certain offenses reverse from what we consider to be more or less of an offense in our reality. For example, the usurers are in a lower circle than the murderers, surely a violent crime is more of a transgression against God than fraud?

Virgil’s explanation of this hierarchy illuminates Dante’s justification of the different punishments:

All malicious crimes perpetuate
injustice: whether violence, or fraud,
they equally deserve celestial hate.
But since fraud is a very human vice, so God
hates it more, and puts the fraudulent
below, where they are more afflicted by his rod. (Canto XI.22-27)

In other words, violence is a sin of passion, while since fraud is premeditated, Dante believes it is more sinful and more of a transgression against God’s will. Therefore crimes of passion are less sinful than crimes of human reason. Clearly this moral system was very carefully thought out.