"Milton and the Critics: The Reception of Paradise Lost" Topic

"…Milton's epic achieved classical status in the last years of the seventeenth century, when it was published with explanatory notes – the first poem in English to be so presented. Twenty years later, its position was consolidated by an influential series of articles written by Joseph Addison in the Spectator (a daily paper). This, however, did not protect the poem from interference: in 1732, Richard Bentley (one of the earliest textual critics in England) produced an 'emended' edition, in which he argued that the blind poet had employed an incompetent amanuensis, and that as a result many errors of wording and logic had crept into the published version. Bentley's unjustified and insensitive revisions attracted widespread ridicule – not least from Alexander Pope, who pilloried him in the Dunciad (a satire against dull poets). These revisions reflected, however, a feeling that Paradise Lost, though a national classic, was somehow unorthodox in its theological and philosophical outlook. Pope's poem, and indeed his earlier work Rape of the Lock, show another kind of response to Milton. They are 'mock-epics', and re-deploy elements of Milton's style (and, of course, that of his classical antecedents) to comic ends. Milton's achievement was felt to be so great that no contemporary poet could rival or match it: writing a serious epic would be out of the question…"
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Amicalement
Armand

So…….while I appreciate this, as I am a Milton scholar…..what does it have to do with TMP??

Well… looking at the quantity of posts, I believe that Tango's day job is gaming… maybe poetry is his hobby?

:)

I like Milton, but . . . really? What's next Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, The Pickwick Papers?

Who knows…? (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Well, seriously, knock it off as it takes up space on what is a miniatures/wargaming/appropriate history forum.

I'll try to redeem the topic. Did anyone ever buy into the Global Games Inferno figures? Really nice figures attached to a clunker of a rules syste.

You could say that as Paradise Lost was the result of the War of Angels, its kosher.
I always remember our teacher telling us that Milton wrote Paradise Lost when he got married, and Paradise Regained after his wife predeceased him.
Lines from Milton were used in Star Trek's "Space Seed" with Khan's "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven"

Interesting mini & nicely painted WJ

Agree!

Good job!

Amicalement
Armand