Best Critical Edition of Paradise Lost

[mayneverhave]

What is the general consensus on the best Critical Edition of Paradise Lost.
I'm not interested in a first-time reader, undergraduate version, but the best scholarly edition.

Any opinions?

[Dipen Guha]

" More safe I sing with more voice. unchanged
To hoarse or Mute, though fall'n on evil days.
On evil days though fallen and evil tongues;: ( VII; 24-26)
The genesis of Paradise Lost is thus indicated. Unlike Shelleyan thought " I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed", Milton's indomitable courage and spirit is revealed in those lines. At a time when all his physical powers failed, becoming totally blind and losing all political connections and influence--Milton developed the power of the spiritual in him; and the result was the genesis of Paradise Lost.
The story of the composition of Paradise Lost is very interesting. First, Milton intended to write on the evils of Satan( Just as he treated Comus) in latin in the form of verse( but not in epic style), connecting it with the Gunpowder plot. Later he thought of writing the same in English language. But his ideas about writing a great work in the form of an epic " seem to have crystallised during his Italian travels, perhaps because his acquiaintance with Manso seemed to bring him closer to Tasso, the Italian poet of epic in the vwernacular, whose theory and practice were, very influential on Milton. Afterwards, his knowledge of Homer, Virgil and Spenser made Milton shift the subject to " Arthuriad"; as Virgil had glorified Rome, Milton would sing the great past of Britain and her still greater future.

[astrum]

Roy Flannagan's The Riverside Milton is quite helpful.