密爾頓的«失樂園»是一部探討撒旦墮落的史詩。 詩中的撒旦因頑強反抗上帝, 進而毀壞人間。 撒旦曾是天庭的大天使路瑟佛﹐但卻因嫉妒神子這個理由, 而心生推翻天父的念頭, 逐漸遠離天庭。在一連串的密謀行動--誘騙三分之一的天使加入叛變的行列﹐建造北國的路瑟佛宮殿﹐以及部署軍隊對抗天軍天將後, 撒旦和他的追隨者紛紛墜入地獄。然而, 不干示弱的撒旦意圖東山再起。他以敗軍元帥的身份﹐喚起眾叛徒的鬥志; 以大天敵的身份﹐自命為«萬魔殿»的帝王﹐接受群魔景仰; 身為報復者﹐搧動群魔覬覦新造的樂土--伊甸園。狡猾的撒旦成功地將人類同化成地獄的公民。罪、死以及所有的墮落天使從此自由地遊走人間, 造成人間動盪不安。
　　«失樂園»深具作者的政治暗喻和政治理想。詩中的撒旦王國實為英國十七世紀的史都華王朝。查理一世向國會挑戰, 顯露了路瑟佛(撒旦的前身)的野心。其子查理流亡海外﹐組織威脅共和政府的流亡政府﹐不禁令人想起地獄裡活躍的撒旦。 而一六六0年查理二世的復辟行動如同詩中撒旦對伊甸園進行的同化策略。
　　一六六0年的復辟對密爾頓而言無疑重蹈專制體制。 為抵制頑強的復辟, 密爾頓將史都華王朝寫入這本他想抨擊君王的《失樂園》。心懷反專制的熱忱, 作者將地獄的描述轉化為對那些支持君主政體的君王﹑教士﹑朝臣﹐和軍事領袖的嘲諷。藉此, 密爾頓於心中重建失落的共和政府。
　　本論文旨在論述撒旦和英國十七世紀王室支持者的關連性﹐以彰顯此鉅著的歷史意涵。首章探討撒旦是基於哪些理由, 自信滿滿地佔領地獄和伊甸園。第二章著眼於米爾頓對撒旦文化(地獄文化)的嘲諷。 第三章則對撒旦殖民伊甸園和查理二世回復王位做比較。 而第四章討論密爾頓以末世論的觀點, 預期查理二世復辟王朝的衰亡。

　　Paradise Lost is an epic about the fall of Satan whose intransigent rebel against God causes ravages on Earth. Satan was once the archangel Lucifer in Heaven, but he gradually distanced himself from the heavenly community with the idea of dethroning the Father only because of his jealousy of the Son. After a series of conspiratorial activities--deceiving one-third of the angels into the action of mutiny, constructing the Palace of Lucifer in the North of Heaven, and deploying armies against the heavenly soldiers, Satan fell into Hell with his followers. Unwilling to accept his failure, however, Satan intended to stage a comeback. As a military leader, he recalled the recreants with a morale-boosting speech; as an archenemy of Heaven, he claimed to be Emperor of Pandemonium, which made him an idol among the fallen angels; as an avenger, he instigated all demons to covet the newly molded land--Eden. The sly Satan successfully assimilated human beings into hellish citizens. Sin, Death, and all the fallen angels have since migrating to the Earth, which causes the turbulence on Earth.
　　Paradise Lost is teeming with the author's political implication and political idea. Satan's kingdom in the poem virtually refers to the Stuart Monarchy in the seventeenth century England. King Charles I's challenge against the Parliamentary reveals Lucifer's ambition. His heir's (prince Charles) wandering abroad with his exiled government that threatened the Commonwealth reminds us of the fanatic Satan's activities in Hell. And the exiled prince's activities of restoration parallel to Satan's strategy of assimilating Eden into Hell.
　　For Milton, the 1660's restoration is beyond question a repetition of autocracy. Resisting this intransigent restored monarchy, Milton inscribed the Stuart Monarchy into Paradise Lost, a very text where he intended to give a diatribe on the monarchs. With political gusto of anti-autocracy, he transformed the description of Hell into a mockery on the pro-monarchal monarchs, popes, courtiers as well as the militants. By doing so, Milton reconstructed his lost Commonwealth within.
　　This thesis aims to explicate on the association between Satan and the seventeenth century England's royalist supporters in order to reflect the historical significance in this tome. Chapter I explores the reasons why Satan is so confident in his enterprise of occupying Hell and Eden. Chapter II focuses on Milton's satiric attack on the Satanic culture (hellish culture). Chapter III makes the comparison between Satan's colonizing Eden and Charles II's restoration. And, Chapter IV deals with Milton's political expectation of the decline of Charles II's restored government in terms of eschatology.

Works Cited

Benet, Diana Treviño. "Hell, Satan, and the New Politician." Literary Milton: Text, Pretext, Context. Ed. Diana Treviño Benet. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne UP, 1994. 91-113.

Bennett, Joan S. "Satan and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits." Reviving Liberty: Radical Christian Humanism in Milton's Great Poems. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. 33-58.

Berry, Boyd M. "Puritan Soldiers in Paradise Lost." Modern Language Quarterly 35 (1974): 376-402.

Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1927. 8-25.

Broadbent, J. B. "Milton's Hell." ELH 21:3 (1954): 161-92.

Cheshire, Paul. "Satan as Toad--God's Uses of Adversity." Milton Quarterly 28:2 (1994): 39-41.

Coiro, Ann Baynes. " 'To Repair the Ruins of Our First Parents': Of Education and Fallen Adam." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 28 (1988): 133-47.

Davies, Stevie. "Kings of This World." Images of Kingship in Paradise Lost: Milton's Politics and Christian Liberty. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1983. 9-50.

Edward, Earl of Clarendon, The History of The Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in The Year 1641. Volume Six. New York: U of Oxford, 1888.

Evans, J. Martin. Milton's Imperial Epic: Paradise Lost and the Discourse of Colonialism. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1996.

Fallon, Robert Thomas. "The Commonwealth before the Darkness." Milton in Government. PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1993. 23-65.

---. "Milton on Government." Milton in Government. PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1993. 177-212.

Ferry, Anne. Milton's Epic Voice: The Narrator in Paradise Lost. Rpt. Ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.

Flannagan, Roy, ed. The Riverside Milton. New York: Houghton, 1999.

Forey, Margaret. "Milton's Satan: Wisdom Reversed." Essays in Criticism: A Quarterly Journal of Literary Criticism 46:4 (1996): 302-18.

Geisst, Charles R. "Logic and Human Affairs." The Political Thought of John Milton. London: British Library, 1984. 5-20.

Guilfoyle, Cherrell. "Adamantine and Serpentine: Milton's Use of Two Conventions of Satan in Paradise Lost." Milton Quarterly 13 (1979): 129-34.

Hill, Christopher. Milton and the English Revolution. London: Faber, 1977.

Huckabay, Calvin, "The Satanist Controversy of the Nineteenth Century." Studies in English Renaissance Literature. Ed. Waldo F. McNeir. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1962. 197-210.

Hutton, Ronald. "The End of the English Republic." The Restoration: A Political and Religious History of England and Wales. New York: U of Oxford, 1986. 21-123.

---. "A King in Search of a Realm, 1649-1650." Charles the Second King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. 34-48.

---. "The King of Scots, 1650-1651." Charles the Second King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. 49-70.

Jung, C. G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.

---. Psychological Reflections. New York: Harper, 1961.

Lewis, C. S. "Satan." A Preface to Paradise Lost. London: Oxford UP, 1942. 94-103.

Martin, Rodger. "The Colonization of Paradise: Milton's Pandemonium and Montezuma's Tenochtitlan." Comparative Literature Studies 35:4 (1998): 321-55.

Martin, Thomas L. "On the Margin of God: Deconstruction and the Language of Satan in Paradise Lost." Milton Quarterly 29:2 (1995): 41-7.

Milton, John. Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. Don M. Wolfe. Volume I. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1971.

---. Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. Don M. Wolfe. Volume III. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1971.

---. Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. Don M. Wolfe. Volume IV. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1971.

---. Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. Don M. Wolfe. Volume VI. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1971.

---. Complete Poems. Ed. John Leonard. New York: Penguin, 1998.

Norton, Rictor. "Queen James and His Courtiers." The Great Queens of History 8 January 2000 <http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/jamesi.htm>.

Ogden, H. S. V, "The Crisis of Paradise Lost Reconsidered." Philological Quarterly XXXVI (1957), 17-9.

Parker, Patricia. "Eve, Evening, and the Labor of Reading in Paradise Lost." English Literary Renaissance 9 (1979): 319-41.

Pecheux, M. Christopher. "The Council Scenes in Paradise Lost." Milton and Scriptural Tradition: The Bible into Poetry. Ed. James H. Sims and Leland Ryken. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1984. 83-103.

Quint, David. "Paradise Lost and the Fall of the English Commonwealth." Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form From Virgil To Milton. NJ: U of Princeton, 1993. 268-324.

Rajan, Balachandra. "The Problem of Satan." Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth Century Reader. London: Chatto and Windus, 1962. 93-107.

Raymond, Joad. "An Eye-Witness to King Cromwell." History Today 47:7 (1997): 35-41.

Sasek, Lawrence A. "The Drama of Paradise Lost, Books XI and XII." Studies in English Renaissance Literature. Ed. Waldo F. McNeir. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1962. 181-96.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "A Defence of Poetry." The Selected Poetry and Prose of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ed. Carlos Baker. New York: Random House, 1951. 494-522.

Siegel, Paul. " 'A Paradise within Thee' in Milton, Byron, and Shelley." Modern Language Notes 56:8 (1941): 615-7.

Swiss, Margo. "Satan's Obduracy in Paradise Lost." Milton Quarterly 28:3 (1994): 56-61.

Shullenberger, William. "Satan's Death Trip." Milton Quarterly 27:2 (1993): 41-8.

Ulreich, John C., Jr. "A Paradise Within: The Fortunate Fall in Paradise Lost." Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (1971): 351-66.

Waddington, Raymond B. "The Death of Adam: Vision and Voice in Book XI and XII of Paradise Lost." Modern Philology 70 (1972): 9-21.