SOURCE: "The Taste for Milton," in A Handful of Authors, Sheed and Ward, 1953, pp. 75-7.

In the following excerpt, Chesterton sees Milton as a seventeenth-century individualist, standing apart from the Classical tradition on which he drew.

Of all poets Milton is the one whom it is the most difficult to praise with real delicacy and sincerity of definition. Of all poets Milton is the one whom it is most easy to praise with mere facile phraseology and conventional awe. There is one thing about Milton which must have been generally observed—that he is really a matured taste, a taste that grows. Shakespeare is really for all ages, for all the seven ages of man.

But Milton at his best is absolutely nothing to childhood. I do not mean that children cannot enjoy Milton; children can enjoy the Post Office directory. That is the kingdom of heaven; to...