“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.”
William Blake
“Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.”
Carl Sandburg
“When a damp/ Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand/ The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew/ Soul-animating strains - alas, too few!”
William Wordsworth
“Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of common life.”
C. S. Calverley
“Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.”
Don Marquis
“The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.”
William Hazlitt
“After the erection of the Chinese Wall of Milton, blank verse has suffered not only arrest but retrogression.”
T.S. Eliot
