Publisher's Synopsis
This study looks at two opposite problems that face literary criticism. Scholarship of the past has frequently been iterated in the present without analyzing or corroborating interpretations or supposed "facts." Scholarship of the present may, therefore, rest on an unacceptable or erroneous basis. On the other hand, scholarship of the past has often been unknown in the present or just ignored, even though present-day criticism may be enhanced or developed or achieve greater cogency by knowledge of past critical evidence. Such matters are pursued here as they impinge in certain areas of the life and work of John Milton.
