Miltonic criticism and the problem of the reader's belief
Authors:   , Sire James W 
Published: February 2025

This study examines the literary criticism of Milton's late poems from the seventeenth century to the present as that criticism deals with the problem of the reader's belief. The general question which is investigated is this: can a reader who holds beliefs different from those embodied in a given poem assign any aesthetic value to the poem, and if so, upon what basis? This study is confined to a treatment of theological beliefs only. Aesthetic value is taken as a generic term to mean the value of the work as an art object. As each aesthetic system is dismissed, its criteria for measuring aesthetic value is noted. Limiting the study to the literary criticism of a major theological poet in the seventeenth century allows the study a broad historical scope in which changing trends can be isolated, and at the same time, it allows sufficient restriction to permit an examination of most of the published criticism of the poetry. While the problem of belief is at present much discussed by modern critics, this study is the first detailed examination of the way the problem has been treated with a poem, such as Paradise Lost, which forces the critic to take a stand on the problem. The study is organised historically, each major section being denoted to one century of Miltonic criticism, but both historical and critical conclusions are drawn. Historically, the study shows that the first century and a quarter are dominated by the Neoclassical dictum that poetry should delight and teach, and therefore whenever a poem presents a theology, that theology must be true. Milton is thus praised or condemned to the degree that each critic agrees or disagrees with what he thinks that theology is. This mode of criticism is resent in every century. By the nineteenth century, however, it becomes obvious to many critics that Hilton's poetry contains a theology which can no longer be considered true. Thus Milton's poetry becomes either deprecated or evaluated by other than Neoclassical standards. Victorian aestheticism, which measures aesthetic value solely on the basis of the excellence of its style, the harmony of its form, or the internal coherence of its ideas is one solution. The twentieth century produces several other methods of measuring aesthetic value: the preseme of archetypes, the ability of a specific theological view in a poem to be taken as a metaphor of a more generally human view, or the intensity of the experience evoked in the reader. The critical conclusions based on the detailed historical analysis include the isolation of five criteria which are especially important for any critical theory which is to apply to the evaluation of theological poetry. On the basis of these criteria, two positions, while mutually contradictory, are seen to offer the most potential for future criticism. The first is the traditional approach of Neoclassicism brought up to date by modern modifications. The second is a critical relativism that maintains that aesthetic value is measured only by the intensity and coherence of the reader's experience of a poem's view of reality whether that view of reality be believed or not believed by the reader. The characteristics of each of these views and the advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed in detail.