Milton

This landmark critical study, first published in 1900, attempts to solve one of English literature's most formidable puzzles: why does John Milton, despite his acknowledged greatness, remain so deeply unsatisfying to so many readers? Sir Walter Raleigh brings considerable wit and intellectual honesty to this question, refusing the hagiographic approach that had dominated Milton scholarship. Instead, he examines the man behind the masterpiece with clear-eyed curiosity. The analysis ranges across Milton's entire oeuvre, the early lyrics, the controversial political prose, the magnificent epic Paradise Lost, but always returns to the central mystery of Milton's singular vision. Raleigh is particularly incisive on the subject of Milton's Puritanism: not as a vague "influence" but as a consuming fire that shaped every artistic choice. His discussion of Milton's absence of humor is genuinely path-breaking, tracing how this absence creates an uncanny gap between the poet's immense powers and his ability to move ordinary readers. What emerges is a portrait of a man whose greatness and limitations are inextricably intertwined. Milton's severity, his refusal to compromise or soften, becomes the very source of his power, and his isolation.