 The want* of human interest is always felt. Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for...  The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - Page 173by Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy - 1820Full view - About this book
 | John L. Mahoney - Literary Collections - 1998 - 388 pages
...Johnson's famous (or infamous) remarks about the reader's response to Paradise Lost. He calls it a book "the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to...longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure."2 This seems a surprising conclusion, for Johnson's commentary on the poem begins with the... | |
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