Satanic/Promethean Hero
Byron and Shelley belonged to the Satanic School of Poets and they
publicised heterodoxy in their works. Satan’s defiant autonomy was
seen as synonymous with self-assertion, the hallmark of the romantic
era. For them, Satan was a liberator and the fall of man is seen as an
emancipation of Man from bondage and authority. This particular strain
of thought led to the Promethean figure of Shelley and the Byronic
hero.
The Metamorphosis of Satan
Satan’s heroic status became problematic early in the 18th century
when Dryden observed that the fallen archangel occupied the role of
hero in a formal but not an ethical sense, a contradiction disabling the
moral of Paradise Lost.
The first critic to pronounce Satan the hero of Paradise Lost, Dryden
registered his unease with the archangel’s role by implying that Milton
perverted the instructive function of epic when he made Satan the
protagonist. Dryden asserts that Milton’s epic would have been
superior ‘if the Devil had not been his hero, instead of Adam. Dryden’s
cryptic obiter dictum identifies Satan as the hero for merely formal
reasons: he carries and completes the action, triumphing over Adam.
Acknowledging no virtue in Satan, Dryden’s laconic assessment implies
that Satanic heroism is not only transgressive but morally
incomprehensible.
In Addison, Milton’s fallen archangel became an embodiment of
sublimity. Addison declines to assign Satan the role of hero,
Byron and Shelley belonged to the Satanic School of Poets and they
publicised heterodoxy in their works. Satan’s defiant autonomy was
seen as synonymous with self-assertion, the hallmark of the romantic
era. For them, Satan was a liberator and the fall of man is seen as an
emancipation of Man from bondage and authority. This particular strain
of thought led to the Promethean figure of Shelley and the Byronic
hero.
The Metamorphosis of Satan
Satan’s heroic status became problematic early in the 18th century
when Dryden observed that the fallen archangel occupied the role of
hero in a formal but not an ethical sense, a contradiction disabling the
moral of Paradise Lost.
The first critic to pronounce Satan the hero of Paradise Lost, Dryden
registered his unease with the archangel’s role by implying that Milton
perverted the instructive function of epic when he made Satan the
protagonist. Dryden asserts that Milton’s epic would have been
superior ‘if the Devil had not been his hero, instead of Adam. Dryden’s
cryptic obiter dictum identifies Satan as the hero for merely formal
reasons: he carries and completes the action, triumphing over Adam.
Acknowledging no virtue in Satan, Dryden’s laconic assessment implies
that Satanic heroism is not only transgressive but morally
incomprehensible.
In Addison, Milton’s fallen archangel became an embodiment of
sublimity. Addison declines to assign Satan the role of hero,
