Milton was a Puritan by conviction, and as such he was not welcome as a pastoral candidate in the state church. But then an obstacle derailed his intended clerical calling.

In anticipation of that, Milton stayed on at Cambridge University to earn a master’s degree. From childhood, Milton was theoretically destined to become a minister. Paradise Lost was written by John Milton in the middle of the seventeenth century. Having written my dissertation on Paradise Lost, having taught Paradise Lost as many as two hundred times, having written articles and books on Milton, and having attended and spoken at Milton conferences, I love Milton’s masterpiece more now than ever. With this advice in mind, I commend Paradise Lost as a candidate for lifelong acquaintance.

I would extend this bit of practical advice to include the possibility of choosing a single masterwork for detailed attention over a lifetime (though I do not thereby discourage wide reading). In his opening chapter, the author offered a piece of advice for ministers (and by implication all church leaders and literary laypeople) that makes total sense: we should claim one author as our own, specializing in that author the way a literary scholar might.

I have referenced this book throughout my half-century career as a teacher and writer, even using adaptations of its title, Poetry as a Means of Grace, to good effect. As a small index to how much our society’s attitude to Christianity has changed in the past half-century, in 1941 a Princeton University English professor published a book with Princeton University Press addressed specifically to Christian ministers.

Paradise lost series