Here is my response:
The idea that Satan is the "hero" or even the main protagonist is just wrong. The poem is about Adam, Eve, the Son of God... and it is about the Human Condition... And it is about the poet, i.e. Milton's intellectual life refracted through poetry.
Satan is a piece of stage machinery, albeit a very interesting piece of stage machinery... But, yes, just a cardboard cut-out with moving parts.
Can we make anything out of the fact that the AI essayist (a machine) would make a machine the hero of the poem? Probably, but it's hardly worth the bother--maybe.
People (or machines) who insist on making Satan into more than he is, are poor scholars... or haven't read the entire poem... or haven't read it very carefully.
Here are a handful of Highbrow posts addressing the issue:
3 comments:
Good thinking! I may disagree with some things...like Satan being a machination...but thinking is human progress...unless it's bad thinking. Then it's regressing. "Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing..."
I was speaking of Milton's Satan--the character in the poem in a Calvinist universe of predestination. Is he merely a puppet? I am not entirely convinced he (and his) followers ever had any choice. The only characters with choice seem to be the Son, Adam, and Eve, though Adam might have some doubts about himself and Eve!
And of course there is Antony William's clever painting to consider!
https://carterkaplan.blogspot.com/2024/12/antony-williams-cosmic-cosmic.html
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