One of the first major responses was an adaptation for the stage by John Dryden, The State of Innocence (1671). The audience was not few, but was it fit?įrom the start, this epic poem attracted a number of disobedient readers. In spite of this unwelcoming climate, when Paradise Lost appeared, it was hailed as a work of genius, even by Milton's political opponents. England in 1667 was reeling from the events of the previous year, when plague and fire had swept the capital, causing a devastation many people thought was divinely inspired a biblical epic from a blind, grim old controversialist was by no means certain of being sympathetically received, as the poet's wish that his poem might 'fit audience find, though few' (VII.31) perhaps recognises. His unorthodox views on various sensitive subjects, including divorce (he was in favour) were well known: Milton was an active writer of political pamphlets as well as a poet, and he had many influential enemies. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Milton was out in the cold: as a staunch republican, a supporter of Cromwell and an apologist for the regicide, he was lucky to escape execution for treason. Despite its current canonical status, a favourable reception for Paradise Lost in the late seventeenth century was no foregone conclusion, and its reputation has fluctuated surprisingly ever since. It was recognised as an extraordinary achievement shortly after it appeared, and has, in the three hundred and fifty years that people have been reading and thinking about it, provoked a great deal of critical debate. In 1667 John Milton published Paradise Lost, perhaps the greatest long poem in the English language.

Title page to the first edition of Paradise Lost (1667).

Poem paradise