The first systematic criticism of Milton and Paradise Lost was made forty-six years after the poem appeared, in the six essays wich Joseph Addison wrote for the Spectator in 1712.
Addison´s object was to explain the resemblances and differences between Milton´s poem and the classical epics of Virgil and Homer, in a way wich would appeal to cultivated but unlearned readers. His chief effort was to persuade his readers of the propiety of Milton´s style and language, wich they would often find rough, obscure, or lacking in refinement.

The appreciation of Milton´s poetry in the 18th  century was thus supported by two powerful forces in English life: the use of the Greek and Roman classics as a bais for education, and the predominance of Christian belief. Dr Johnson disliked Milton´s personality and politics, but learning and intense religious convictions raised him above his perjudices to do justice to Paradise Lost. As the place of the classiscs and readers Christianity in English education has changed, critics and readers have come to attach more importance to Milton´s personality and their personal reactions to it, wich are often hostile.

Milton criticism in the Romantic period (1790-1830) shows that the poet could reveal new aspects of his greatness, and make new appeals of various kinds, in a changed intellectual and moral atmosphere. The new emphasis on revolutionary change and individual liberty brought into prominence Milton´s passion for freedom, and the power with wich he creates the character of Satan.

Milton greatness was unquestionated by the Victorians. His dogmatism was not harmony with the characteristic thought of the age; but the prophets of the new national vision-Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin and George Eliot- undoubtelly saw themselves as
 

heirs of the 17th century Puritans, and saw in Milton a thirst for reform and of expression, both in its own time, when it replaced the verse and language of the earlier 17th century, and in its prolonged influence in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The total development of modern Milton criticism includes, however, a massive contribution by American scholars. The cultural heritage of the United States, together with a greater national self-cinfidence than England has enjoyed in this century, apparently enables American critics to uphold confidently the tradition of  Christian humanism to wich Milton belongs. While in England C.S. Lewis for example, has used somewhat polemical methods in re-asserting Milton´s greatness (A  Preface of Paradise Lost 1942).
 

©York Notes . Paradise Lost .Books I-II and IV-IX. John Milton by Richard James Beck . Paradise Lost . Books I-II and IX-X  By R.E.C. Oxford University Press.