Some works, particularly the shortest of the minor poems, seem to get lost in the mix, and even if all the poems in an edition have been numbered sequentially, remain difficult to locate without consulting a table of contents that is itself difficult to locate.

No doubt this teeming profusion is revealing. It shows that the young Milton did in fact move from language to language, genre to genre, turning the different aspects of his education into different expressions of his developing literary ambitions. But we think that little will be lost in the way of revelation by reconfiguring the minor poems, while something will be gained in the way of clarity and ease of use. We have therefore divided them into three groups. “English Poems,” much the largest one, contains all the poems Milton wrote in English, including classical and biblical translations, with the exception of his sonnets. A second group, “English and Italian Sonnets,” includes the poems entitled “Sonnets” and numbered in both the 1645 and 1673 editions. The sonnets group has the further justification that its poems should for some purposes be studied together, given their power and originality in the history of this important poetic form. A final category, “Latin and Greek Poems,” contains all the poems written in those languages; the English prose translations accompanying these pieces are the work of Gordon Braden, and were commissioned for this edition. Within each section the works have been placed in their probable order of composition. “A Chronology of Milton’s Poems,” prepared by Stephen B. Dobranski, allows readers to determine at a glance the likely time frame for the composition of any poem printed in this edition. Our headnotes and annotations, first published in 2007, have been revised and updated for this printing.

We have sought to ease the journey of modern readers. Most of Milton’s capitalization, italics, and contractions have been removed. Quotation marks came into vogue some years after the death of Milton, and do not appear in early manuscripts or editions of his works. We have added them. His spelling has been modernized and Americanized; “musick” becomes “music,” and “vigour” becomes “vigor.” But there are important exceptions to these preferences. Our efforts at modernization have been checked by a desire to preserve whenever possible the sound, rhythm, and texture of his poems. We have therefore left archaic words and some original spellings intact; “enow” does not become “enough,” and “highth” does not become “height.” In cases where Milton’s contractions indicate that a syllable voiced in the modern pronunciation of a word is to be elided, as with “flow’ry” in l. 84 of “At a Vacation Exercise” or “Heav’nly” in l. 15 of “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” we have left them alone. Sometimes the final -ed in words like “fixed” is not voiced, as in lines 70 and 141 of the Nativity Ode. Where -ed is a voiced syllable, as in l. 4 of “Il Penseroso,” we have placed an accent mark slanting down from left to right.

Punctuation offers the most troubling questions for modernizers. For punctuation, or “pointing” as it was called in Milton’s day, serves two purposes at least. It displays the logic of the syntax, aiding a reader in the basic chore of construing sense. But especially in a poetic text, and most especially in poetic texts of the seventeenth century, punctuation also indicates rhythmic pauses. It is generally assumed, perhaps without much evidence, that a semicolon points to a longer pause than a comma, a colon to a longer pause than a semicolon, and a period to the most pronounced pause of all. Milton’s punctuation is difficult to update for modern readers in both of its functions. With regard to construing sense, his syntax does not come packaged in the modern unit of the sentence. His clauses twist and turn, sending out tendrils of sense both forwards and backwards.