By reimaging Satan in such a way, we retain his pigheadedness and resilience against the victors of the Angelic War, although we lose the scale of Satan’s own goals, and so Satan didn’t know the full range of God’s powers or the true extent of the nature of Adam and Eve. Satan’s famous line regarding leadership of “Better to reign in hell, then serve in Heav’n” fits the personality, both in the pretext and the speech, as Satan is a charismatic leader capable of leading and directing the Demon’s passions (Milton 1.263). Satan in being charismatic and a leader of Demons makes it easy to visualize him speaking to a large throng of chanting Demons in the Pandemonium that he constructs. Yet when we regard Satan in such a way, we lose sight of Satan’s original goals being merely to challenge God and wreak havoc against his authority, and so we lose part of his character by adding an extraneous element. Regardless, by reimagining Satan, we accentuate his leadership traits and allow his goals and charismatic nature to come to the surface.
The speech was written and based upon Satan’s own speech in lines 255-263 in Book 1, however it was reimagined as a 20th century style fascist revanchist speech. The choice was made to reframe it as a speech in that style because Satan heavily beats the war drums against God, and wishes to seek vengeance against his defeater God, as many fascist dictators such as Stalin, Mussolini, or others wished to do. The other parallels between “evil” fascist leaders and Satan are also present. Additionally, when read without context, the speech supports Satan’s heroic stance against God, which many listening to a fascist speech would agree with at the time of the speech, which is why their speeches were so powerful in galvanizing the population into committing atrocities they would not individually agree with. The speech was rewritten and dramatized to parallel speech patterns and goals of 20th century ideologues who wished to seek revenge on the nations that defeated them.
By reimaging Satan in such a way, we retain his pigheadedness and resilience against the victors of the Angelic War, although we lose the scale of Satan’s own goals, and so Satan didn’t know the full range of God’s powers or the true extent of the nature of Adam and Eve. Satan’s famous line regarding leadership of “Better to reign in hell, then serve in Heav’n” fits the personality, both in the pretext and the speech, as Satan is a charismatic leader capable of leading and directing the Demon’s passions (Milton 1.263). Satan in being charismatic and a leader of Demons makes it easy to visualize him speaking to a large throng of chanting Demons in the Pandemonium that he constructs. Yet when we regard Satan in such a way, we lose sight of Satan’s original goals being merely to challenge God and wreak havoc against his authority, and so we lose part of his character by adding an extraneous element. Regardless, by reimagining Satan, we accentuate his leadership traits and allow his goals and charismatic nature to come to the surface.
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