There are Romantic and Victorian authors that I like...but I find more value in 20th and maybe even 21st century authors.
Point taken, and I honestly would agree. My undergrad thesis is actually focusing on theatricality and objecthood in twentieth century literature (Sylvia Plath, Nathanael West, and Cormac McCarthy to name a few). It's a topic that has been addressed in visual art to an extent, but hasn't been explored much in literary art, although several writers have dealt with this idea in their works.
I prefer Milton over Shakespeare in terms of English literature.
Yes, Paradise Lost to me completes a holy tetrarchy of Homer, Vergil, Dante and Milton.
Milton is extremely overrated, in my opinion. I love
Paradise Lost, but Milton didn't really conceive anything else of immense importance or interest.
Comus is mildly entertaining, but most of his catalogue is just boring.
As far as the epics go, Vergil, Homer and Dante definitely deserve upper-echelon recognition. Both Milton and Dante are in debt to Vergil and Homer, but Dante was far more creative and original, in my opinion.
Personally, I believe that William Blake and John Keats both deserve recognition for their epic works. Interestingly enough, Keats never actually finished
Hyperion because he felt that his style was becoming too much like Milton's (not meaning to imply that Keats disliked Milton, he loved him; but Keats was always plagued by the anxiety of influence).