Like Homer, Virgil, and Camoes, Milton employs many of the epic devices early in Paradise Lost. The "Heav'nly Muse" is called early in the work to assist Milton with his epic (Book 1, Line 6). The first book also has many epic similes scattered throughout. Similes like the meteor (587-593) and the bees (768-777) seem to grow longer and longer and become more involved (almost like Milton is acknowledging past poets influence, but showing he can do it much better). In The Lusiads, Camoes integrated the Roman gods with Christian ideology. Milton dismisses the religions of past epics and uses many references within the Old Testament like Camoes used the Roman gods.
It is refreshing to discover Christianity has shifted the responsibility of actions onto the individual. Satan acknowledges that "The mind is its own place and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. ... Here at least We shall be free" ( 254-255, 258-259). If the opposition realizes the power of freedom, perhaps the heroes will have the same belief. Milton writes that Satan and the angels that followed him lost "the flow'r of Heav'n [that was] once yours" and their names were "blotted out and razed By their rebellion" (316, 362-3). Satan and "his industrious crew" now strive to corrupt the souls of men. It reminds me of Lewis and his Screwtape Letters.
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