JOHN MILTON (1608—1674) was born in London, the son of a well to
do law –scrivener. He studied for seven years at christ’s college, Cambridge
where he gained a high reputation as a classical scholar. From 1632 to 1638, he
lived mainly with his father who had retired to the village of Horton in
Buckinghamshire. He continued his studies and also the writing of poetry in
English and latin. During this period, he wrote two of his finest short poems,
L’Allegro and It Penseroso, the masque comus, and Lycidas his famous lament for
a friend drowned in a shipwreck.
From April 1638 until August 1639 he toured
the continent, spending most of his time in Italy visiting centres
of learning. On his return to London he, conducted a small private
school and it is worth remembering that this practical experience lies behind
his treatise of Education, published in 1644. Most of his writing from his
return England until the restoration of the monarchy, in 1660, consisted of
prose pamphlets and treatises. In the
years immediately before the civil war, during the war itself and during the
republican government first of parliament and then of Cromwell, Milton was
passion ately on the side of freedom and republicanism. He almost completely
abandoned poetry to advance his religious and political beliefs in prose. His
motive were patriotic and he abandoned poetry with reluctance but the loss to
English poetry must have been great. However, his devotion to the public good
caused him to write the magnificent Areopagitica, a noble and courageous
pamphlet defending freedom of speech and attacking parliamentary laws for the licening
and censorship of the press.
In March 1649 (the year when
Charles I was beheaded) Milton accepted the post of ‘Secretary for foreign tongues’ to the Council of state of the
new republican government. In addition to his routine duties of drafting
diplomatic correspondence in Latin, he made it his business to compose tracts
in Latin, for circulation in Europe, eloquently defending the republican
regime, which was utterly obnoxious to the monarchical states of Europe. He
went on laboring at these tasks in spite of the onset of blindness, which
became total in 1652.
It is amazing that Milton was left
unscathed after the restoration of the monarchy, for he had been one of the
foremost adherents to the government which had executed the king’s father. Of course
he had to retire from public affairs, but he was left in peace to devote
himself to his true mission, that of a great poet. He had for years meditated
the composition of a great epic and was now able to devote himself completely to
his noble task. Paradise lost was published
in 1667, this first edition consisting of ten books. In spite of Miton’s adherence
to an unpopular cause, the merit of this great work was instantly recognized. The
famous poet. John Dryden whose political and religious opinions were utterly
opposed to Milton’s. at once recognized
its greatness and praised it generously. In 1674, the year of his death, Milton published paradise Lost in a revised version in
twelve books, the from in which we normally study it today. In 1671, he had published together Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, a
noble poetic tragedy after the classical Greek modal.
Milton’s verse is, in some respect,
outside the main tradition of English poetry. He was one of Europe, and imposed some
of the qualities of Latin upon English. He was also influenced heavily by
Spenser, an Elizabethan with a highly individual style. There is a heavy
sonority in Milton’s verse which is unique in quality. The remarkable
individual style has a majesty superbly appropriate to the nobility and power
of his thought and imagination. Paradise lost
is the only true epic in English, but it can stand worthily beside the other
great epic of world literature.
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