John Milton

I

Introduction

John Milton (1608-1674), English poet, whose rich, dense verse was a powerful influence on succeeding English poets, and whose prose was devoted to the defense of civil and religious liberty. Milton is often considered the greatest English poet after Shakespeare. His masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is considered unsurpassed among English epic poems. It is a powerfully imaginative and dramatic work, based in part on the biblical story of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

II

Life

Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608, and educated at Saint Paul’s School and Christ’s College, University of Cambridge. He intended to become a clergyman in the Church of England, but growing dissatisfaction with the state of the Anglican clergy together with his own developing poetic interests led him to abandon this purpose. From 1632 to 1638 he lived in his father’s country home in Horton, Buckinghamshire, preparing himself for a career of scholarship and literary creativity by embarking upon an ambitious program of reading the Latin and Greek classics and ecclesiastical and political history. In 1638 and 1639 he toured France and Italy, where he met the leading literary figures of the day. On his return to England, he settled in London and began tutoring schoolboys and writing a series of social, religious, and political tracts.

In 1642 Milton married Mary Powell; he was 33 years old and she was 16. She returned to her family after a few weeks because of the incompatibility of their temperaments and was not reconciled with her husband until 1645. Before her death in 1652, she gave birth to three daughters and a son; the son died a month after his mother. Toward the end of 1656 Milton married Katherine Woodcock, who died early in 1658, shortly after giving birth to a daughter who lived only a few months. He married a third time, to Elizabeth Minshull, in 1663.

In his writings, Milton supported the parliamentary cause in England’s civil war between Parliamentarians and Royalists (English Revolution: Civil War), and in 1649 he was appointed Latin secretary in the government of Oliver Cromwell. While in this post he wrote several tracts in Latin defending the Commonwealth government against foreign criticism for having executed the king. He became totally blind about 1652 and thereafter carried on his literary work helped by an assistant. With the aid also of the poet Andrew Marvell, he fulfilled his government duties until the restoration of Charles II in 1660. With the Restoration of the monarchy, Milton was punished for his support of Parliament by a fine and a short term of imprisonment. Until his death on November 8, 1674, he lived in seclusion with his third wife.

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Of the poet’s personality, memoirs written by Milton’s contemporaries indicate that his was a singular blend of grace and sweetness and of force and severity amounting almost to harshness. In some of his own writing he reveals his arrogance and bitterness. Although isolated and embittered by blindness, he fulfilled the tasks he had set himself, lightening his dark days with music and conversation.

III

Works

John Milton’s work is marked by cosmic themes and lofty religious idealism; it reveals an astonishing breadth of learning and command of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew classics. His blank verse is of remarkable variety and richness, so skillfully modulated and flexible that it has been compared to organ tones.

A

Early Poems

Milton’s career as a writer may be divided into three periods. The first, from 1625 to 1640, was the period of such early works as the poems written while he was still at Cambridge, the ode “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (1629), the sonnet “On Shakespeare” (1630), “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” (both probably 1631), “On Time” (1632?), “At a Solemn Musick” (1632-1633?), the masques Arcades (1632-1634?) and Comus (1634), and the elegy Lycidas (1637). “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” are companion poems that contrast the temperaments of the cheerful, active person and the melancholy, reflective person. Comus is a masque, or dramatic entertainment, that deals with the magical powers by which chastity is enabled to withstand temptation. Lycidas is a pastoral elegy written in memory of Milton’s friend Edward King, who died in 1637.

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