We’ve all heard about the classics and assume they’re

The Building of Pandemonium 

(lines 670–798)

The apparent plot reaches its climax when the 

fallen demons concentrate their energy and ability 

to build the grand city of Hell for whose title Mil-

ton invented the word Pandemonium (“all demon 

assembly”). In keeping with Milton’s design of 

making Paradise Lost a huge structure of contrasts 

and opposites, Pandemonium is the antithesis of 

both the city of Heaven and the garden of Eden. 

Lest we be misled in regard to the grand appear-

ances of Pandemonium, Milton ends Book 1 with 

a series of shrinking similes in which the demons 

are cut down to size in our imaginations: they 

It is essential to our 

understanding of Mil-

ton’s Satan to see that 

Milton models Satan 

on the old epic heroes. 

Milton had to find a 

place for the “martial 

theme” (battlefield 

action) because that 

was the established 

subject for an epic. 

Milton deliberately 

attached all the usual 

traits of the warrior 

hero to Satan because 

he regarded the whole 

value structure of 

ancient epic as wrong. 

Milton is explicit about 

this strategy: at lines 

553–54 he links the 

Paradise Lost.526206.i03.indd   22

1/3/13   4:19 PM

---