Satan’s Architecture of Fear: Landscape, Body and Emotion in Paradise Lost
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John Milton’s Paradise Lost begins with ‘men’s first disobedience’ and Satan’s fall into Hell after his bold challenge to God. Satan’s body and Hell echo each other, for Hell is a region of ‘sorrow’ where only ‘sights of woes’ exists. Satan’s tremendous body, which is compared with Leviathan, generates fear for the spectators. The current studies on Satan usually focus on the fearsome effect of the satanic figure and excessively passionate satanic language. However, the mechanism behind Satan’s fearsome behaviour and motivation in Paradise Lost is neglected. ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ Being inferior to God, Satan reasons to use his emotion to change his status quo. Furthermore, Satan appears to be bold to encourage his comrades toward revenge, but the immortal Satan deems God as a threat, and is afraid of a ‘heavier punishment.’ ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Proverbs 9:10.) Satan reads fear in a literal sense, as fearsome and horrifying. His false reading could be a result of his emotional architecture. Thomas Aquinas has discussed the object of fear in his Summa Theologica, which helps us to understand Satan from the external body and landscape of Hell to mental interaction of the past experience, shame and guilt. Hence, I would argue that in Paradise Lost, instead of excessive passion, fear is Satan’s reason. This study with a history of emotion will reveal Satan’s spectrum of fear, which builds the landscape of hell, his monstrous body and satanic language.