Drawing on the extraordinary wealth of scholarly and critical material on John Milton's life, works and influence, this collection of reprinted articles brings together the most illuminating scholarship that has been written about Milton in the last hundred years. Volume two focuses on the first collected edition of Milton's poetry published during his lifetime with essays on such key works as ' The Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity ', ' L'Allegro ' and ' Il Penseroso ', ' Lycidas ', and ' Comus '. Each volume contains articles exemplifying a wide range of critical approaches and scholarly methods offering the reader not only a broad introduction to one of England's greatest poets but also a vade mecum to the incredible diversity of literary critical activity that has characterized the field of Milton studies over the past century.