ABSTRACT
The anti-Miltonists, it seems, would assert that there has never been a Milton controversy in the strict sense. Specific and detailed criticisms of Milton have been offered, but the upholders of Milton's established reputation have refused to enter in debate. Nevertheless, the adverse criticisms of Milton made by Leavis and A. J. A. Waldock seem to the author sufficiently serious to deserve careful consideration, and, if possible a reasoned answer. Leavis's attack on Milton's language is paralleled by Waldock's criticisms of the underlying structure of Paradise Lost. A partial exception must be here made for Lewis's book, A Preface to Paradise Lost, which first appeared in 1942. A successful answer to Waldock would have to show that narrative structure of Paradise Lost does possess the kind of coherence and psychological plausibility that we have come to expect from the novel.
