In the long history of Milton commentary a single axiom has survived for generations as a critical touchstone in the formal analyses of his longer poems. Stated simply it reads: Milton was not a dramatist and his poems are not dramatic. Recently Anne Ferry, Jackson Cope, and Douglas Bush have briefly discussed the danger of treating the terms “drama” and “dramatic” as catchalls. Their mild reproofs of contemporary critics require, I suggest, not just forceful reiteration but a theoretical and historical analysis of the dramatic axiom's use and its effect on Milton criticism. The pertinent questions are: (1) what do Milton's critics mean by “dramatic,” and (2) how do their various definitions control the scope and direction of their criticisms?