Satan’s Virtues In Paradise Lost From Spacial Triad Theory

As one of the great epics in the history of English literature,Milton’s Paradise Lost,with its eloquent structure,its classic theme of the struggle between good and evil,and its profound inquiry into human nature,has generated much debate among critics,focusing mainly on such typical topics as free will(including freedom of speech and the publication,free will and the spirit of rebellion,free desire and renewal,etc.),thematic exploration(such as temptation and the fall),and character analysis(Satan,Adam and Eve),but neglects to explore the virtues of Satan in a spatial context,thus highlighting the academic value and innovative significance of this thesis.Since the beginning of the spatial turn in the Anglo-American academy in the middle and late last century,Bakhtin’s chronotope,Bachelard’s phenomenological spatial poetics and Frank’s spatial narratives have become the intellectual contemplation of Western literary spatial studies.The production of space by Lefebvre pioneered the trinity of space with physical space,psychological space and social space,which has an important guiding significance for the systematic study of literary space.From another point of view,Western ethics has a long and deep tradition,with Plato taking courage and justice as the necessary conditions for the virtue of the ideal citizen,and Aristotle,the master of Western ethics,putting forward the important ethical concept of generosity on this basis.This provides an important theoretical support for this thesis’ s exploration of Satan’s spatial virtues in Paradise Lost.Apart from the introduction and conclusion,the main body of this thesis is divided into three chapters,the first of which follows the logical sequence of the spatial route of Paradise Lost,focuses on Satan’s “heaven-hell-Eden-hell” route and its moral implications.The evolution of the physical space in the epic bears witness to Satan’s fall from heaven to hell with his followers,and his quest for a new world with his sole responsibility,which is matched by Satan’s courage of resisting God’s authority and seeking all by himself,thus creating a mapping relationship between the physical displacement and the quality of courage in Paradise Lost.The second chapter expands on Satan’s righteous pursuit of the equality of all beings in Paradise Lost from the perspective of the psychological space of Lefebvre.Firstly is the equality of man and God.In the spiritual Garden of Eden,Satan seeks to free mankind from the original state of ignorance and to maintain the same fairness and justice as God,and to truly enjoy the pursuit of knowledge with power and free will.Satan is transformed from the servant of God to the chief advocate of human knowledge.Secondly,the equality of all beings,Satan’s metamorphosis from heavenly god to animal not only transmits divinity to all creatures in the world step by step,but also expresses a sense of justice in which all creatures are equal;Satan’s metamorphosis is both a poetic manifestation of his inner imagination and a foregrounding of the original spiritual state of humanity.The third chapter of this thesis explores the mapping relationship between social space and Satan’s generosity virtues.Not only does Satan have a sense of self-awareness of being alone,but he also has a generous sense of helping the whole world — in heaven,Satan lights the fire of equality for his followers,in hell,he reawakens their desire for freedom,and when faced with the darkness and of the tough road ahead,Satan searches for a new world by himself.This generosity of heart,in which the world is for the common good,opens the way to a virtuous blueprint for an ideal social space in which the world is one.On the whole,Milton’s Paradise Lost establishes an epic artistic link with the virtuous triad of courage,justice and generosity,and also breaks through the long-standing Western mind-body dualism and provides a new trinity(republican)government in which the people,parliament and king are united,breaking the royalist authoritarian shackles of King Charles II’s kingly dualism.The republican government is a spatial prefiguration of literary ethics,and thus a pioneering significance that cannot be ignored.But in shaping a Satanic morality,Milton still incorporates conceit,deceit and ambition,falling back into the authoritarian Christian demonic tradition and the oligarchy of early capitalism in his efforts to break the tyranny,the reasons behind and the far-reaching implications of which are worthy of scholarly caution and deeper reflection.