...it escape Lord Byron what was said there in reference to Paradise Lost, a poem, which, considered, with respect to design, may claim the first place,...second, among the productions of the human mind." Whoever were the readers of his pamphlets, Bowles doubts whether Byron had read them himself, before...

...it escape Lord Byron what was said there in reference to Paradise Lost, a poem, which, considered, with respect to design, may claim the first place,...second, among the productions of the human mind." Whoever were the readers of his pamphlets, Bowles doubts whether Byron had read them himself, before...

...the pen of Johnson only could have written. " Considered with respect to design," he claims for it " the first place, and with respect to performance,...the second, among the productions of the human mind ;" and, in passing final sentence, pronounces it, " not the greatest of heroic poems only, because...

...Yet he regarded him as a very great poet, and he considered Paradise Lost "a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place,...second, among the productions of the human mind." The view of the epic which he gives in this connection is cogent statement of the neoclassic position...

...other merit." Or, in his "Life of Milton," his remarks on Paradise Lost, "a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place,...second, among the productions of the human mind." "Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem all other greatness shrinks away." But: "the reader...

...a greater work calls for greater care. I am now to examine Paradise Lost; a poem, which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place,...the second among the productions of the human mind. By the general consent of cri ticks, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem,...

...Johnson's commentary on the poem begins with the extraordinary claim that Paradise Lost, "considered with respect to design, may claim the first place,...the second, among the productions of the human mind" (170). Some critics, trying to reconcile these apparently conflicting views, have been led to argue...

...Similarly, Johnson's gestures at ranking works according to artistic excellence - Paradise Lost, "considered with respect to design, may claim the first place, and with respect to performance the second" could seem both unequivocal and perfunctory, as if they were merely rhetorical and not actually positing...

...rank of writers and criticks." Most tellingly, Johnson calls Paradise Lost "a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place,...performance the second, among the productions of the human mind."26 As Paul Fussell observes,"This is a remarkable flux of enthusiasm from Johnson, a man who...

...sein Werk Paradise Lost erhebt Johnson auf den Gipfel der Dichtkunst: "with respect to design, [it] may claim the first place, and with respect to performance the second, among the productions of the human mind."154 Doch wie bei der Person des Dichters bleibt auch Johnsons Urteil über das Werk ambivalent....