John Milton (Bloom's Classic Critical Views)

Esteemed literary critic Harold Bloom calls John Milton the greatest poet of the 17th century and the most powerful in the language after Shakespeare and Chaucer. Milton remains a radical example of the influence of an exemplary mind upon itself. Written just after the Restoration period in England, Milton's blank-verse epic, Paradise Lost, dramatized humankind's "fortunate fall" from grace and earned him a permanent place in the canon. This new entry in the Bloom's Classic Critical Views series looks at Milton throughout the centuries, lending a vital critical eye to this poet, and features a chronology of his life, an introduction by Professor Bloom, and an index for quick reference. Read more