by John Milton
Merritt Y. Hughes, John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose, Odyssey, 1957.
P[atrick] H[ume], Annotations on Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, 1695.
David Masson, The Poetical Works of John Milton, 3 vols., 1893.
Thomas Newton, ‘Paradise Lost’: a Poem in Twelve Books, 1749.
Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg, The Oxford Authors: John Milton, Oxford University Press, 1990.
Zachary Pearce, A Review of the Text of ‘Paradise Lost’, 1733.
F. T. Prince, Milton: ‘Samson Agonistes’, Oxford University Press, 1957.
Jonathan Richardson, sen. and jun., Explanatory Notes on ‘Paradise Lost’, 1734.
Christopher Ricks, John Milton: ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Paradise Regained’, Signet Classics, 1968.
John T. Shawcross, The Complete Poetry of John Milton, Anchor-Doubleday, 1971.
John Smart, The Sonnets of Milton, Maclehose, Jackson, 1921.
S.E. Sprott, John Milton, ‘A Maske’: the Earlier Versions, University of Toronto Press, 1973.
Thomas Warton, Poems upon Several Occasions… by John Milton, 1791.
Don M. Wolfe (general ed.), The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, Yale University Press, 1953–82.
Biographies
Cedric Brown, John Milton: a Literary Life, St Martin’s Press, 1995.
Helen Darbishire (ed.), The Early Lives of Milton, Constable, 1932; repr. Scholarly Press, 1972.
David Masson, The Life of John Milton: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time, 7 vols., Macmillan, 1859–94.
William Riley Parker, Milton: a Biography, 2 vols., Oxford University Press, 1968.
Critical Studies
Sharon Achinstein, Milton and the Revolutionary Reader, Princeton University Press, 1994.
Robert M. Adams, Ikon: John Milton and the Modern Critics, Cornell University Press, 1955.
Don Cameron Allen, The Harmonious Vision: Studies in Milton’s Poetry, Johns Hopkins Press, 1954.
Michael Bauman, Milton’s Arianism, Lang, 1987.
Joan Bennett, Reviving Liberty: Radical Christian Humanism in Milton’s Great Poems, Harvard University Press, 1989.
Cedric Brown, John Milton’s Aristocratic Entertainments, Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Dennis Burden, The Logical Epic: a Study of the Argument of ‘Paradise Lost’, Harvard University Press, 1967.
Thomas N. Corns, Milton’s Language, Basil Blackwell, 1990.
John Creaser, ‘Editorial Problems in Milton’, Review of English Studies n.s. 34 (1983), 279–303 and 35 (1984), 45–60.
Dennis Danielson, Milton’s Good God, Cambridge University Press, 1982.
——, ‘Through the Telescope of Typology: What Adam Should Have Done’, Milton Quarterly 23 (1989), 121–7.
William Empson, Milton’s God, Chatto & Windus, 1961, rev. edn 1965.
——, Some Versions of Pastoral, Chatto & Windus, 1935.
J. Martin Evans, ‘Paradise Lost’and the Genesis Tradition, Clarendon Press, 1968.
——, The Road from Horton: Looking Backwards in ‘Lycidas’, University of Victoria Press, 1983.
——, Milton’s Imperial Epic: ‘Paradise Lost’ and the Discourse of Colonialism, Cornell University Press, 1996.
Stephen M. Fallon, Milton among the Philosophers, Cornell University Press, 1991.
Stanley Eugene Fish, Surprised by Sin: the Reader in ‘Paradise Lost’, St Martin’s Press, 1967; University of California Press, 1971.
Christopher Hill, Milton and the English Revolution, Faber and Faber, 1977.
William B. Hunter, The Descent of Urania: Studies in Milton, 1946 – 1988, Bucknell University Press, 1989.
——‘Milton’s Arianism Reconsidered’, in Bright Essence: Studies in Milton’s Theology, ed. William B. Hunter, C. A. Patrides and J. H. Adamson, University of Utah Press, 1971.
Maurice Kelley, This Great Argument: a Study of Milton’s ‘De Doctrina Christiana’ as a Gloss upon ‘Paradise Lost’, Princeton University Press, 1941.
William Kerrigan, The Sacred Complex: on the Psychogenesis of ‘Paradise Lost’, Harvard University Press, 1983.
Watson Kirkconnell, The Celestial Cycle: the Theme of ‘Paradise Lost’ in World Literature with Translations of the Major Analogues, University of Toronto Press, 1952.
F. M. Krouse, Milton’s Samson and the Christian Tradition, Princeton University Press, 1949.
Edward Le Comte, Milton and Sex, Columbia University Press, 1978.
John Leonard, Naming in Paradise: Milton and the Language of Adam and Eve, Clarendon Press, 1990.
——, ‘Saying “No” to Freud: Milton’s A Mask and Sexual Assault’, Milton Quarterly 25 (1991), 129–39.
Barbara K. Lewalski, Milton’s Brief Epic, Brown University Press, 1966.
——, ‘Paradise Lost’ and the Rhetoric of Literary Forms, Princeton University Press, 1985.
C. S. Lewis, A Preface to ‘Paradise Lost’, Oxford University Press, 1942.
Michael Lieb, Poetics of the Holy: a Reading of ‘Paradise Lost’, University of North Carolina Press, 1981.
——, Milton and the Culture of Violence, Cornell University Press, 1994.
David Loewenstein, Milton and the Drama of History, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Isabel MacCaffrey, ‘Paradise Lost’ as Myth, Harvard University Press, 1959.
Hugh MacCallum, Milton and the Sons of God, University of Toronto Press, 1986.
Leah Sinanoglou Marcus, ‘The Milieu of Milton’s Comus: Judicial Reform at Ludlow and the Problem of Sexual Assault’, Criticism 25 (1983), 293–327.
Harinder S. Marjara, Contemplation of Created Things: Science in ‘Paradise Lost’, University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Charles Martindale, John Milton and the Transformation of Ancient Epic, Barnes & Noble, 1986.
Louis Martz, Milton: Poet of Exile, Yale University Press, 1980; second edn, 1986.
Diane K. McColley, Milton’s Eve, University of Illinois Press, 1983.
R. G. Moyles, The Text of ‘Paradise Lost’: a Study in Editorial Procedure, University of Toronto Press, 1985.
Annabel Patterson, ‘That Old Man Eloquent’, in Literary Milton: Text, Pretext, Context, ed. Diane Trevino Benet and Michael Lieb, Duquesne University Press, 1994.
John Peter, A Critique of ‘Paradise Lost’, Columbia University Press, 1960.
Elizabeth Pope, ‘Paradise Regained’: the Tradition and the Poem, Johns Hopkins Press, 1947.
William Porter, Reading the Classics and ‘Paradise Lost’, Nebraska University Press, 1993.
F. T. Prince, The Italian Element in Milton’s Verse, Oxford University Press, 1954.
David Quint, Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton, Princeton University Press, 1993.
Mary Ann Radzinowicz, Toward ‘Samson Agonistes’: the Growth of Milton’s Mind, Princeton University Press, 1978.
Balachandra Rajan, ‘Paradise Lost’ and the Seventeenth-Century Reader, Chatto & Windus, 1947.
Stella Puree Revard, The War in Heaven: ‘Paradise Lost’ and the Tradition of Satan’s Rebellion, Cornell University Press, 1980.
Christopher Ricks, Milton’s Grand Style, Clarendon Press, 1963.
John P. Rumrich, Matter of Glory: a New Preface to ‘Paradise Lost’, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987.
——, Milton Unbound: Controversy and Reinterpretation, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Ashraf A. Rushdy, The Empty Garden, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.
Regina Schwartz, Remembering and Repeating: Biblical Creation in ‘Paradise Lost’, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
John M. Steadman, Epic and Tragic Structure in ‘Paradise Lost’, University of Chicago Press, 1976.
Arnold Stein, Answerable Style: Essays on ‘Paradise Lost’, University of Minnesota Press, 1953.
Kester Svendsen, Milton and Science, Harvard University Press, 1956.
; John S. Tanner, Anxiety in Eden: a Kierkegaardian Reading of ‘Paradise Lost’, Clarendon Press, 1993.
Rosemond Tuve, Images and Themes in Five Poems by Milton, Harvard University Press, 1957.
A. J. A. Waldock, ‘Paradise Lost’ and its Critics, Cambridge University Press, 1947.
R. H. West, Milton and the Angels, University of Georgia Press, 1955.
Arnold Williams, The Common Expositor: an Account of the Commentaries on Genesis 1527–1633, University of North Carolina Press, 1948.
Joseph Wittreich, Interpreting ‘Samson Agonistes’, Princeton University Press, 1986.
A. S. P. Woodhouse, ‘Theme and Pattern in Paradise Regained’, UTQ 25 (1956), 167–82.
POEMS 1645
On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity. Composed 1629.
I
This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav’n’s eternal King,
Of wedded maid, and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
5 For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
II
That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
10 Wherewith he wont at Heav’n’s high council table,
To sit the midst of trinal unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
III
15 Say Heav’nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heav’n by the sun’s team untrod,
20 Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
IV
See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
25 And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet;
Have thou the honour first, thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel choir,
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
The Hymn
I
It was the winter wild,
30 While the Heav’n-born-child,
All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
35 It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour.
II
Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
40 And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
III
45 But he her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;
She crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere
His ready harbinger,
50 With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing.
And waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
IV
No war, or battle’s sound
Was heard the world around:
55 The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hookèd chariot stood
Unstained with hostile blood,
The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng,
And kings sat still with awful eye,
60 As if they surely knew their sov’reign Lord was by.
V
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds with wonder whist,
65 Smoothly the waters kissed,
Whispering new joys to the mild Oceán,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave.
VI
The stars with deep amaze
70 Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence,
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
75 But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
VII
And though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
80 And hid his head for shame,
As his inferior flame,
The new-enlightened world no more should need;
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright throne, or burning axle-tree could bear.
VIII
85 The shepherds on the lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they then,
That the mighty Pan
90 Was kindly come to live with them below;
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
IX
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet,
95 As never was by mortal finger strook,
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringèd noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The air such pleasure loath to lose,
100 With thousand echoes still prolongs each Heav’nly close.
X
Nature that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round
Of Cynthia’s seat, the airy region thrilling,
Now was almost won
105 To think her part was done,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heav’n and earth in happier union.
XI
At last surrounds their sight
110 A globe of circular light,
That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed;
The helmèd Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
115 Harping in loud and solemn choir,
With unexpressive notes to Heav’n’s new-born heir.
XII
Such music (as ’tis said)
Before was never made,
But when of old the sons of morning sung,
120 While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the welt’ring waves their oozy channel keep.
XIII
125 Ring out ye crystal spheres,
Once bless our human ears,
(If ye have power to touch our senses so)
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
130 And let the base of heav’n’s deep organ blow,
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to th’ angelic symphony.
XIV
For if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
135 Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold,
And speckled Vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And lep’rous Sin will melt from earthly mould,
And Hell itself will pass away,
140 And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
XV
Yea Truth, and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
145 Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering,
And Heav’n as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.
XVI
But wisest Fate says no,
150 This must not yet be so,
The babe lies yet in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both himself and us to glorify:
155 Yet first to those ychained in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.
XVII
With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang
While the red fire, and smould’ring clouds out brake:
160 The agèd earth aghast
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake;
When at the world’s last sessïon,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
XVIII
165 And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
Th’ old Dragon under ground
In straiter limits bound,
170 Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,
And wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
XIX
The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum
175 Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,
180 Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
XX
The lonely mountains o’er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring, and dale