The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (Bantam Classics)

I don’t have anything new or useful to say about the literary quality of Milton’s work. I didn't get much out of his earlier poems, my fault, of course. I have always loved classical epics but I've had to read them in translation. I was very happy to find in Milton's greatest poems - Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes - English and Christian epics that could hold their own with anything that the ancients wrote. I can hardly to reread Paradise Lost. I had trouble finding a Kindle device or app that I could read this particular edition on. I had difficulty reading it because the page layouts with the numerous (8099 in all) annotation notes, didn't mesh well with the early versions of Kindle and Kindle Fire that I own. I wasn't able to read this edition comfortably until I used the Kindle App for Windows 10 to read it on my laptop. As for the tagline for this review: did I really have to answer that fool question before I could write a review?

This book is so old and well known that I guess everyone knows all the plots. Still, if you are new to Milton, you will be taken aback, surprised and delighted again and again. The annotation is good...a little too much, but not too invasive.

I recognize that Milton is second to Shakespeare in linguistic craft and mastery, and, wanting to round our my literary experience, I searched for month to find a lovely, hardbound, guilt-edged "Complete Works of Milton" to match my lovely, hardbound, guilt-edged "Complete Works of Shakespeare." But to no avail! I almost bought a paperback "Complete Works of Milton," which had Milton's Greek, Latin, and Italian poems. It surprised me that this man was a genius in many languages, but since I only speak English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French, I demurred. I finally settled on this edition since it does the job that an English student or aficionado would want. It contains the complete English sonnets, his English plays, and the supernal-issimo twins "Paradise Lost," and "Paradise Regained." In addition to the polyglot works, this book omits his prose works. But that is for another time and another day! The "helps" are great. Every line in Epic Paradise plays is numbered, which prevents any miscounting errors. Moreover, it has many helpful footnotes, which highlight many of Milton's word plays and puns. In this dimension, Milton is one of the funniest classicists in the universe. I enjoy Milton. His wordplay and "force of langue" outstrips Shakespeare in many instances. I also enjoy his obvious Christianity, which is what makes Lucifer is such a charming character. You only counterfeit a true coin!

As expected.

I'm taking a Literature Class on Milton this semester at University. I bought the Kindle Version of the book so I wouldn't have to buy or carry around the giant text book for the class. However, this book disappointing. After the first class I noticed problems. 1. Some of the words have been changed. Take for example Sonnet 19. The text in this book reads "When I consider how my life is spent" (Line 1) The sonnet is supposed to read "When I consider how My LIGHT is spent" (Line 1). This one word difference makes a huge difference in the poem. 2. I also wish translations of his Latin poems were included. For the price I feel like I should have gotten more poems.

Plenty of footnotes for obscure words and meanings.

yeah it was good

Lovely!

All right, this is a review of the specific edition: Bantam Classics, "The Annotated Milton, Complete English Poems" (ISBN 978-0-553-58110-2). I was looking for a compact edition to carry around. While this is a mass market paperback, it's too thick (about 3 cm) to be easily slipped in a handbag. More to the point, all the poems are printed in italics, which makes them hard to read. On the plus side, the notes are at the bottom of the page instead of at the back, and though each is brief, they are complete (if not too much so: if you don't know what a "dell" is or that a "goblin" might be an ugly monster, perhaps Paradise Lost is not for you... really I just want to know who Orcus and Rhea are in mythology). But it's the italics that are the real problem in my view. If you really want a good, but not especially portable, copy, go with the Longman Annotated Poets edition.