...materials for poetry!" As for Johnson's lives "did it escape Lord Byron what was said there in reference to Paradise Lost, a poem, which, considered, with respect...second, among the productions of the human mind." Whoever were the readers of his pamphlets, Bowles doubts whether Byron had read them himself, before...

...the pen of Johnson only could have written. " Considered with respect to design," he claims for it " the first place, and with respect to performance,...the second, among the productions of the human mind ;" and, in passing final sentence, pronounces it, " not the greatest of heroic poems only, because...

...control, and pride disdainful of superiority." Yet he regarded him as a very great poet, and he considered Paradise Lost "a poem which, considered with respect...second, among the productions of the human mind." The view of the epic which he gives in this connection is cogent statement of the neoclassic position...

...section, the reader should be reminded, first, that it occurs after Johnson commends Paradise Lost as "a poem which, considered with respect to design,...performance the second, among the productions of the human mind";2 and, second, that Johnson's criticism arises, paradoxically, from what he takes to be Milton's...

...faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit." Or, in his "Life of Milton," his remarks on Paradise Lost, "a poem which, considered with respect...second, among the productions of the human mind." "Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem all other greatness shrinks away." But: "the reader...

...claims, one finds "a full display of the united force of study and genius" ( 1 83). Paradise Lost is "a poem which, considered with respect to design,...the second, among the productions of the human mind" (170). Johnson's claims for Milton's greatness are not less dramatic or sweeping than those of his...

...Those little pieces may be dispatched without much anxiety; a greater work calls for greater care. I am now to examine Paradise Lost; a poem, which,...productions of the human mind. By the general consent of cri ticks, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it requires an assemblage...

...his unqualified admiration for Milton's poem. Not only does the poem satisfy the demands of the epic ("the first praise of genius is due to the writer...which are singly sufficient for other compositions" [I, 170]), but it also overrides the imaginative and moral reservations Johnson usually has toward...

...and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 1. 10. "By the general consent of criticks the first praise...which are singly sufficient for other compositions"; Lives 1 : 1 70. 11. The Letters of John Keats, ed. HE Rollins (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University...

...conclusion, for Johnson's commentary on the poem begins with the extraordinary claim that Paradise Lost, "considered with respect to design, may claim the...the second, among the productions of the human mind" (170). Some critics, trying to reconcile these apparently conflicting views, have been led to argue...