The Critical Response to John Milton's Paradise LostTimothy Miller Bloomsbury Academic, 1997 M04 22 - 337 pages Paradise Lost was recognized as a major epic poem soon after its publication in 1667. For more than three centuries, critics have been describing, interpreting, and evaluating it. Regardless of their approaches to changing literary values, they have generally accepted it as the prime example of the epic in English. As many critics have observed, the poem brought biblical, literary, cultural, social, scientific, and political elements into such aesthetic harmony that even its detractors have been forced to recognize its greatness. And because of its complexity, it has become a test case in literary studies as a focal point for changing critical assumptions and literary values. This reference book traces the critical reception of Paradise Lost from the 17th century to the present. The volume is organized in chapters devoted to particular centuries, with each chapter presenting a selection of reviews and critical essays from that period. Thus the reader is able to chart the changing response to ^IParadise Lost^R over time. An introductory essay summarizes the reception of Milton's work, and a bibliography lists important sources of additional information. |
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... beginning of Paradise Lost [ 1.17-26 ] . And it was these Divine Ideas , that rais'd his Soul , and fill'd it with Admiration , and with a noble Greatness , ( which Passion express'd , makes the Greatness of the Spirit ) the Reader who ...
... beginning , a middle , and an end . There is , perhaps , no poem , of the same length , from which so little can be taken without apparent mutilation . Here are no funeral games , nor is there any long description of a shield . The ...
... beginning his Iliad from the anger of Achilles , the source of all the Grecian misfortunes . 1.17 , pp . 11-12 . Invoking the Muse is commonly a matter of mere form , wherein the poets neither mean , nor desire , to be thought to mean ...
Contents
Milton and the Telescope | 14 |
Dominant Residual | 18 |
An Essay Upon the Civil Wars of France And also Upon | 23 |
Copyright | |
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