ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Satan’s version of hope impels his actions throughout the epic and drives his strategy of revenge against God. Satan establishes property claims fi rst in Hell and then on earth in hopes of dividing God’s empire and undermining his omnipotence. For Satan, hope is a form of power rather than a form of spirituality, and thus he materializes hope, basing his aspirations for power on the acquisition of land. By the end of book 2, Satan’s strategy for using hope becomes clear: he who has the land has the power. Yet books 11 and 12 show the paradox of modern individualism: although land is a source of power and liberty, reducing hope to selfserving, acquisitive materialism leads both to despair and destitution. It is through Satan’s ontology of hope in Paradise Lost that Milton engages in the ongoing land debates in England and reveals his attitudes both about the failures of the Revolution and his hopes for post-Cromwellian England. The epic exposes simultaneously Milton’s despair, dissent, and hopeful revisionism.
