epic; he includes catalogues of warriors, ships, armies; he gives extended formal speeches by the main characters; and he makes frequent use of the EPIC SIMILE" (176). The epic simile is "an elaborated comparison. This type differs from an ordinary SIMILE in that it is more involved, more ornate, and is a conscious imitation of the Homeric manner. The secondary object or picture is developed into an independent aesthetic object, an IMAGE which for the moment excludes the primary object with which it is compared" (176). With this as background, it is now possible to trace the epic elements present in Book I of Paradise Lost rather easily. That all of those six characteristics noted above are present and demonstrable is certain; it is equally certain that it is through the manipulation of some of these epic characteristics and conventions that Milton offers to the reader a number of the most controversial and interesting questions and situations in the poem. One of the most formidable problems that the reader must face is that of hero; exactly who is the epic hero in the poem? Steadman notes that for many readers, Milton's devil is a much stronger character than his God, and his image of Hell far more forceful than his picture of Heaven. From such subjective impressions as these they infer (wrongly) that the Hell-scenes must be more 'sincere' than the descriptions of Heaven. They conclude, with Dryden, that Satan must be the real 'hero' of Paradise Lost (Milton's 27); it is not to Satan, clearly, notes Steadman, that the mantle of hero falls; "in the language of Renaissance criticism, Adam--the central figure in the poem--is clearly the 'epic person' or 'primary hero'" (viii). Going a step further, Steadman also remarks that, "in supplying Satan with many of the conventional attributes of the epic hero, Milton indirectly censures the epic tradition for celebrating vice as heroic virtue. . . . Milton relies on a 'reductio ad absurdum' to d...
