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British Poetry

Notes with the power of God, surrounds the rebel angels, Satan included, and drives them out of the Gate
of Heaven through a hole in Heaven’s ground. They fall for nine days through Chaos, before landing
in Hell.
Raphael warns Adam that Satan has begun to plot the doom of mankind. Raphael hypothesizes
that Satan, in order to get revenge, wishes to make them commit sin to tarnish God’s beloved creation.
Raphael adds that Satan may also want others to rebel against God and suffer a similar fate. Raphael
explains to Adam that they must fear Satan and must not yield to his evil plot.

Analysis
The war in Heaven is probably intended to be read as a metaphor, encapsulating spiritual lessons
in an epic scenario so that we (and Adam) can understand what Raphael is talking about. The story
certainly contains lessons that Raphael wants Adam to learn from. One of the morals of the war in
Heaven is that disobedience leads to a person’s becoming blind to the truth. Satan and the rebel
angels feel empowered by their new decision not to submit, yet their opposition to God actually
renders them powerless. Satan and his army never seem to realize the futility of their rebellion.
Satan rouses himself and his troops to more and more disobedience, but their continued failure and
continued hope of victory demonstrate the blinding effect that their pride and vanity have wrought.
Thus blinded, they are easily overcome in battle each day, by only a small portion of God’s angels
actually fighting against them. Adam tries to learn the parallel between the battle between good
and evil that occurred in Heaven and the battle that will occur subtly on Earth. In similar fashion,
we are supposed to envision the parallel of Adam’s struggle in our own lives, as we strive to ward
off evil and attain virtue.

Who is the leader of God’s angels in the war in Heaven?

Raphael’s narrative makes the war in Heaven seem unreal, and almost cartoonish. As Raphael
explains, angels are exempt from death, which lessens the consequences of the battle and thus makes
it seem that less is at stake. Satan, for instance, is grievously wounded by Michael’s sword—he is
almost hacked in two—but he is ready to fight the next day. The good angels pick up entire mountains
and sling them at the rebel angels. Unable to die or even be seriously wounded, the rebel angels can
dig themselves out from under the mountainous rubble, dust themselves off, and plan for their next
strike. The entire war comes to seem rather silly because it lacks drama. The outcome is never in
doubt.
The style of battle does not resemble the warfare of Milton’s day, but rather the feudal warfare of
earlier epics. Milton presents the warring factions each lining up with their spears and shields across
a battlefield. The battlefield discussions between the two sides before battle are reminiscent of scenes
in Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. Then, amid classical style warfare, the rebel angels employ
what was in Milton’s time a relatively new and dangerous weapon of war: a gunpowder cannon.
Milton introduces this discrepancy in modes of warfare to allude to his society’s advancements
over those of the classical age. Satan’s invention of the cannon is an unexpected development,
signaling Milton’s belief that gunpowder is a demonic invention and that so-called advancements
in war are futile and worthless.

21.3 Book–VII

21.3.1 Summary: Prologue and Invocation

At the halfway point of the twelve books of Paradise Lost, Milton once more invokes a muse, but
this time it is Urania, the Muse of Astronomy. Milton refers to her in Christian terms, as a source of

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