Milton's Selected Poetry and Prose: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions) Paperback – November 19, 2010

I bought this book for a class on John Milton and it's been useful and easy to peruse. It doesn't transcribe Milton's writing exactly, though, some of the spelling and grammar has been modernized (for example, changing "heavn'ly" to "heavenly") but the text itself is unabridged. It doesn't include Paradise Lost, which is Milton's most popular work, so if that's what you need, look elsewhere. Overall I am satisfied with this product, no complaints.

I will not comment on or rate Milton's poetry, other than to say its of the highest quality. But this Norton Critical edition is very nice and worth getting if you want to read Milton's non-Paradise Lost work.

Got an A in the class!

Great product, great seller!

The voice of humanity!

Milton's poetry, outside of his great epic poem Paradise Lost, is not as well known as that towering masterpiece. If you're unfamiliar with his other work, you're missing some real gems. His earlier poems tend towards a lyrical beauty that strikes me as almost pre-Romantic in its graceful imagery and sheer beauty of language. L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Lycidas, the masque Comus and the English Sonnets are all superb miniatures that show Milton experimenting and growing as a poet. His later poems like Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes are more Classical in their striving towards the epic utterance.Not to be missed are Milton's brilliant prose works such as Areopagitica. Five of Milton's major prose works are included and they are indispensable reading. Norton Critical Editions are renowned for their contextual analysis and this edition of Milton's selected poetry and prose contains more than 200 pages of background material. If you're studying Milton, this is an excellent resource to aid in understanding this truly magnificent poet. This is one of my favorite Norton Critical Editions because of its breadth of selections and its depth of contextual analysis. Milton is a difficult poet for a modern reader to grasp quickly. He is often remote and his voice seems obscured by a mask of heroic detachment. That makes helpful annotations as you read even more necessary. Couple that with his vast learning and often obscure religious and mythological references, and you have a prescription for confusion. Milton's Selected Poetry is really useful in clarifying the poet's message. The editing is first rate with contextual analysis and annotations that are extensive but never intrusive or distracting for the reader. This is a solid Milton resource.

For a book worth 1.5K+, its pages aren't good. But talking about the content it's a blessing to students and teachers alike. Contains all of the major poems and prose apart from paradise lost, select criticisms- really helpful. Norton is the best critical edition available.

This is a good anthology of Milton’s prose tracts and shorter poetry: while it doesn’t contain everything, it’s got all his major English poems (that aren’t Paradise Lost, which is published in a superb companion volume) and his most important polemics, including Areopagitica. The introduction(s), notes, and accompanying essays are very good on the whole, though some of the latter (such as John Carey’s bizarre TLS piece on Samson Agonistes and 9/11…) eat up a lot of pages that could’ve been spent on extracts from better criticism.