The Devil as Teacher in Paradise Lost

Abstract

A consideration of Satan as a kind of teacher reveals Milton’s increasing pessimism regarding the function of education. Milton follows the 6th century biblical poem De Spiritualis Historiae Gestis by Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus in “framing the temptation of Eve as a diabolic parody of heavenly pedagogy.” Eve falls “through a rigorous but erroneous logical analysis of her situation.” Transcendent general principles rather than inductive particular data become the basis of knowledge. Gone is the optimism about the value of experience in education and the confidence in the inevitable victory of truth over falsehood expressed by Milton in the 1640s.