Teaching literature is an exercise in freedom. Now ideological demands from the right are putting it in danger.

Samuel Johnson quipped that even the admirers of John Milton’s epic never wished it “longer than it is.” But “Paradise Lost” ...

His writing, later in the 1660s, of Paradise Lost can be seen as a rebuke to those who would treat his work so. Since then, his reputation has grown, and he is now as relevant as he has ever been.

Milton wanted to write a great epic poem (about what he wasn’t sure). But as England slid into civil war, Milton gave up verse and started writing political pamphlets against Charles I’s tyranny.

Such is the legend of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” It may be an apocryphal story but feels true to the poem; it was as if God had filled the poet to the brim, until he had to be drained by ...