Tracing the critical reception of Paradise Lost, this volume presents selected reviews and critical essays from the 17th century to the present.
TIMOTHY C. MILLER is Professor of English at Millersville University, where he teaches courses in English Renaissance literature.
Series Foreword by Cameron Northouse
Introduction
Seventeenth-Century Critical Responses
"The Verse" by John Milton
The Transproser Rehears'd: or the Fifth Act of Mr. Bayes's Play by [Richard Leigh]
"On the Paradise Lost of the Top Poet John Milton" by Samuel Barrow
"On Paradise Lost" by Andrew Marvell
Theatrum Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets... by Edward Phillips
"The Authors Apology for Heroique Poetry; and Poetique Licence." The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man: An Opera by John Dryden
The Life of Milton by John Aubrey
"An Essay of blanc Verse out of the 6th. Book of Paradise lost" by Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon
"Preface." Sylvae: or, the Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies by John Dryden
The Lives of the most Famous English Poets... by William Winstanley
"Epigram" by John Dryden
"Preface." The Passion of Byblis, Made "English" by [John] Dennis
"Dedication." The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis... by John Dryden
"An Account of the Greatest English Poets." The Annual Miscellany: For the Year 1694... by Joseph Addison
"To Mr. T.S. in Vindication of Mr. Milton's Paradise lost." Miscellaneous Letters and Essays... by [Charles Gildon]
Letters of State, Written by Mr. John Milton... by [Edward Phillips]
"The Preface, Being an Essay on Heroic-Poetry." The Life of Our Blessed Lord &Saviour Jesus Christ... by Samuel Wesley
Annotations of Milton's "Paradise Lost"... by P[atrick] H[ume]
Remarks on a Book entituled, "Prince Arthur: An Heroick Poem" by [John] Dennis
"The Preface." The History of Sin and Heresie Attempted... by [Charles Leslie]
The Life of John Milton... by [John Toland]
Eighteenth-Century Critical Responses
"Preface." Fables Ancient and Modern by John Dryden
The Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry by John Dennis
The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry by John Dennis
"Preface." Britannia Trimphans by John Dennis
The Spectator, Numbers 262, 267, 273, 279, 285, 291, 297 by Joseph Addison
The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood... by Thomas Ellwood
An Essay Upon the Civil Wars of France...And also Upon the Epick Poetry of the European Nations... by Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire
Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's "Paradise Lost" by Jonathan Richardson, Father and Son
"Epistle I of Horace" by Alexander Pope
The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated by William Warburton
A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke
The Lives of the English Poets by Samuel Johnson
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres by Hugh Blair
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
The Life of Milton, in Three Parts... by William Hayley
"Conjectures on the Origin of 'Paradise Lost'." The Life of John Milton, in Three Parts... by William Hayley
Nineteenth-Century Critical Responses
The Poetical Works of John Milton... by Henry John Todd
"London, 1802" by William Wordsworth
"Milton." by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Lecture III. On Shakespeare and Milton" by William Hazlitt
["Notes on Milton's 'Paradise Lost'"] by John Keats
Personal Letters by John Keats
"On the Devil, and Devils" by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Milton" by Thomas Babington Macaulay
"Dr. Samuel Parr..." by Thomas De Quincey
"Table Talk," September 4, 1833 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
"Oxford" by Thomas De Quincey
"Milton" by [Ralph Waldo Emerson]
"Southey and Landor." Imaginary Conversations by Walter Savage Landor
"Milton verses Southey and Landor" by Thomas De Quincey
"The Poetry of Pope" by Thomas De Quincey
"Milton Alcaics by Alfred Lord Tennyson
History of English Literature by H. A. Taine
"John Milton." Literary Studies by Walter Bagehot
The Life of John Milton by David Masson
Milton by Mark Pattison
"Milton." Essays in Criticism by Matthew Arnold
The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton by William Vaughn Moody
Twentieth-Century Critical Responses
Milton by Sir Walter Raleigh
Milton's Astronomy: The Astronomy of "Paradise Lost" by Thomas N. Orchard
"Milton and the Return to Humanism" by James Holly Hanford
The Epic: An Essay by Lascelles Abercrombie
Milton by E. M. W. Tillyard
"Milton and the Telescope" by Marjorie Nicolson
Revaluation: Tradition &Development in English Poetry by F.R. Leavis
A Preface to "Paradise Lost" by C. S. Lewis
"Paradise Lost" in Our Time by Douglas Bush
"Paradise Lost" and its Critics by A. J. A. Waldock
Poets of the English Language by W. H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson
Answerable Style: Essays on "Paradise Lost" by Arnold Stein
Milton and Science by Kester Svendsen
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye
Romantic Image by Frank Kermode
"Paradise Lost" as Myth by Isabel Gamble MacCaffrey
English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century 1600-1660 by Douglas Bush
The Muse's Method: An Introduction to "Paradise Lost" by Joseph H. Summers
Milton and the Christian Tradition by C.A. Patrides
Milton: A Biography by William Riley Parker
Discovery as Form in "Paradise Lost" by Stanley Eugene Fish
Asimov's Annotated "Paradise Lost" by Isaac Asimov
Milton's Eve by Diane Kelsey McColley
Milton: Poet of Exile by Louis L. Martz
"How Deconstruction Works" by J. Hillis Miller
A History of English Literature by Alastair Fowler
"Radical Christian Humanism in Paradise Lost" by Joan S. Bennett
"John Milton and Raymond Williams: Dominant, Residual, Emergent, Immanent" by Keith W. F. Stavely
Autobiographical Selections
The Reason of Church Government Urged Against the Prelaty
An Apology for Smectymnuus
Selected Bibliography
Index