ABSTRACT
To write a true critical history of Paradise Lost would involve writing a history of English taste, so central has the poem been to thoughts about poetry and culture in all succeeding generations. All that seems possible here is to point to a few well-known highlights, ignoring the shading and counter-currents that give history its body. It is sometimes said that Paradise Lost was slow to make its way. This does not seem to measure anything more than naïve surprise that it was not an instant success; for within thirty years it was well established as an English classic. The view that Milton’s vocabulary and blank verse — ‘numerous prose’, the Earl of Roscommon calls it in 1685 — are old-fashioned, harsh and uncivilised remained an obvious difficulty for readers of Paradise Lost until the end of the eighteenth century, even for those who wished to praise the poem.
