"Milton's influence is omnipresent in almost all later English poetry, and in not a little of later prose English literature. At first, at second, at third, hand, he has permeated almost all his successors."[6]
How the Paradise Lost has affected Thought.—Few people realize how profoundly this poem has influenced men's ideas of the hereafter. The conception of hell for a long time current was influenced by those pictures which Milton painted with darkness for his canvas and the lightning for his brush. Our pictures of Eden and of heaven have also felt his touch. Theology has often looked through Milton's imagination at the fall of the rebel angels and of man. Huxley says that the cosmogony which stubbornly resists the conclusions of science, is due rather to the account in Paradise Lost than to Genesis.
Many of Milton's expressions have become crystallized in modern thought. Among such we may mention:—
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven,
What matter where, if I be still the same?"[7]
"To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."[8]
"…Who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe."[9]
The effect of Paradise Lost on English thought is more a resultant of the entire poem than of detached quotations. L'Allegro and Il Penseroso have furnished as many current quotations as the whole of Paradise Lost.
The Embodiment of High Ideals.—-No poet has embodied in his verse higher ideals than Milton. When twenty-three, he wrote that he intended to use his talents—
"As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye."[10]
Milton's poetry is not universally popular. He deliberately selected his audience. These lines from Comus show to whom he wished to speak:—