SOURCE: Johnson, Samuel. “Life of Milton.” In Lives of the English Poets, edited by G. B. Hill, Vol. 1, pp. 84-200. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1905.

In this excerpt originally published in 1779, Johnson praises the genius of Paradise Lost in superlative terms, reaffirming his earlier judgment that Milton was the greatest of the English poets.

I am now to examine Paradise Lost, a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place, and with respect to performance the second, among the productions of the human mind.

By the general consent of criticks the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason. Epick poetry undertakes to teach the most...