I have used the following abbreviations of specific manuscripts and editions of Milton’s works:
| BMS | Bridgewater Manuscript of A Masque |
| 1667 | Paradise Lost (first edition) |
| 1674 | Paradise Lost (second edition) |
| MS | The Manuscript of Paradise Lost, Book I |
| TMS | The Trinity Manuscript |
| 1637 | A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle (1637) |
| 1638 | Justa Edouardo King naufrago (1638) |
| 1645 | Poems of Mr John Milton (1645) |
| 1671 | Paradise Regain’d. A Poem in IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes (1671) |
| 1673 | Poems, &c. Upon Several Occasions (1673) |
The following abbreviations are used for titles of works by Milton.
| Nativity | On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity |
| PL | Paradise Lost |
| PR | Paradise Regained |
| SA | Samson Agonistes |
Unless otherwise stated, all biblical citations are from the Authorized King James version.
1. The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, edited by Don M. Wolfe et al., 8 vols (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953– 82), vol. 1, p. 823.
2. Complete Prose Works, vol. 4, pp. 618–19, translated (from the Latin) by Donald C. Mackenzie.
3. Helen Darbishire (ed.), The Early Lives of Milton (London: Constable, 1932), p. 33. Darbishire attributes this anonymous Life to Milton’s other nephew, John Phillips, but it is now generally attributed to Cyriack Skinner.
4. William Empson, Milton’s God (London: Chatto and Windus, 1961), revised edition 1965, p. 13.
5. C. S. Lewis, A Preface to ‘Paradise Lost’ (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), p. 73.
6. Joseph Wittreich, The Romantics on Milton (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1970), p. 119.
7. Ibid., p. 532.
8. Thomas Ellwood, The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood (London: J. Sowle, 1714), pp. 233–4.
9. Edward Phillips, The Life of Mr John Milton (1694), in Darbishire, Early Lives, p. 76.
10. W. B. Yeats, ‘Anima Hominis’, in Essays (London: Macmillan, 1924), p. 492.