 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 instruction, retire harassed and overburdened,...  The Monthly magazine - Page 120by Monthly literary register - 1839Full view - About this book
 | John Sitter - Literary Criticism - 2001 - 322 pages
...popular works such as Lycidas, the Masque, and Paradise Lost ("The want of human interest is always felt. Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader...take up again ... Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure").46 Striking at Milton's role as the great national poet, Johnson criticized his "foreign... | |
 | Victoria Silver - Literary Criticism - 2001 - 432 pages
...Johnson would be moved famously to remark that no one ever wished Paradise Lost longer than it is: "Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions."" Johnson... | |
 | Greg Clingham - Literary Criticism - 2002 - 238 pages
...infamous, apparently decisive observation seems to come: "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" (para. 252). Such... | |
 | John Milton - English literature - 2003 - 1012 pages
...and classical models; but he also notes the strain that the epic imposes upon the reader: 'Parodiee 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.' Developing an observation of Addison 's about Milton's style,... | |
 | Ana M. Acosta - Religion - 2006 - 234 pages
...and perhaps explains the durability of that most famous of epigrams in Johnson's Lives of the Poets, "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."8 Yet if Milton's poem and the Eden it depicts are conceived... | |
 | Helga Schwalm - Autobiography - 2007 - 422 pages
...deren ästhetisches Vergnügen ungetrübt ist, denn "[t] he want of human interest is always feit. Pa.ra.dise Lost is one of the books which the reader...admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer thanit is."156 Erhabenheit und ästhetisches Vergnügen kommen bei Johnson... | |
 | Lee Morrissey - Literary Criticism - 2008 - 264 pages
...differences between them with regard to reading. For example, Johnson writes, regarding Paradise Lost, "Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation" (ibid., 183-84). On the one hand, we could say that... | |
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