ABSTRACT
During the years before 1732 the criticism which has to this day been directed toward John Milton and his works was being established. Positively, he was seen as a major epic and religious poet, whose versification was well adapted to subject and form; a great classical humanist, whose continuance of tradition was highly commendable; and a sublime poet whose ideas were philosophically uplifting and democratic. Emphasis lay on Paradise Lost, with glances at the minor poetry but with little attention being paid to the two other major poems or the prose, except for Milton’s significance as a historian. Negatively, he was seen as a rebel in literary, political, and social matters; a poet whose verse, language, and literary form stultified the course of poetry often through deleterious influence on others; a dour man whose ideas were reprehensible. Such adverse criticism derived from antagonism to Milton the man, the anti-Royalist, the antiprelatical, the ‘divorcer’, as well as Milton the breaker of tradition whether in form or in versification, and Milton the blasphemer. The sources were Milton’s life, some of the prose, and Paradise Lost. Milton seems seldom to have been read completely, and too frequently from biased angles.
