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C. S. Lewis and Satan: A Preface to Paradise Lost and Its Respondents, 1942-1952

Published nearly eight decades ago, C. S. Lewis’s A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942) remains arguably the most influential work of Milton criticism ever written. Composed during the height of the midtwentieth century “Milton Controversy,” during which the very value and quality of Milton’s epic was challenged and debated by various “anti-Miltonist” scholars, A Preface was influential on many levels, including Lewis’s assertion that Paradise Lost’s artistic success could best be appreciated by placing it within its proper genre as a “Secondary epic” (Lewis 39; see 39-60) and also his argument that “Milton’s version of the Fall story” should not be considered theologically unorthodox but rather conforming “substantially” to the Augustinian tradition and the orthodox “Church as a whole” (65; see 65-71, in which Lewis argues that Milton’s account largely coincides with that of Augustine’s City of God). But unquestionably Lewis’s chapter on Milton’s Satan (Lewis 92-100) provoked the most substantive and enduring responses in the decade following A Preface’s publication. In that brief chapter, Lewis challenged the popular notion that Milton’s Satan was the hero of Paradise Lost, arguing rather that Satan was not only morally evil but also supremely egotistical, even showing himself in some ways to be foolish and tedious. The critical response to Lewis’s assertions came rapidly and continued steadily, shaping and continuing to shape interpretations of Paradise Lost to this day, as evidenced by various late twentieth century and twenty-first century