The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems [Paperback]

Affordable, compact, and authoritative, this one-volume edition ofThe Annotated Miltonencompasses the monumental sweep of John Milton’s poetry. Here are Milton’ s early works, including his first great poem, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” the light and lyrical “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” the masqueComus,and the lushly beautiful pastoral elegy “Lycidas.” Here, too, included in their entirety, are the three epic poems considered to be among the finest works in the English language:Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained,andSamson Agonistes.

Fully annotated by Burton Raffel, this distinguished edition clarifies the complex allusions of Milton’s verse and references the personal, religious, historical, and mythical influences that inspired the great blind poet of England, who ranks among the undisputed giants of world literature.Burton Raffel is a translator, poet, and scholar whose major translations includeThe Canterbury Tales,Beowulf,Don Quijote,The Red and the Black, andGargantua and Pantagruel. He has also annotated several Shakespeare plays for Yale University Press. He was the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities and emeritus professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette until 2003. He lives in Louisiana.A PARAPHRASE ON
PSALM 114
1624


When the blest seed of Terah's faithful son
After long toil their liberty had won,
And passed from Pharian fields to Canaan land,
Led by the strength of the Almighty's hand,
Jehovah's wonders were in Israel shown,
His praise and glory was in Israel known.
That saw the troubled sea, and shivering fled,
And sought to hide his froth-becurled head
Low in the earth. Jordan's clear streams recoil,
As a faint host that hath received the foil.   
The high, huge-bellied mountains skip like ramlƒ5