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John Milton

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Writers and critics

   CAPTION: John Milton

       Born:      December 9, 1608
       Died:      November 8, 1674
   Occupation(s): Poet

   John Milton ( December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet,
   best-known for his epic poem Paradise Lost.

Life

   John Milton's father, John Milton Senior, (c. 1560 – 1647) moved to
   London around 1583 after having been disinherited by his devout
   Catholic father Richard Milton, a wealthy landowner in Oxfordshire, on
   account of revealing his Protestantism. Around 1600, the poet's father
   married Sara Jeffrey (1572 – 1637), and the poet was born on December
   9, 1608, in Cheapside, London, England.

   Milton was educated at St Paul's School, London. He was originally
   destined for a ministerial career, but his independent spirit led him
   to give this up. He matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge in 1625
   and studied there for seven years before he graduated as Master of Arts
   cum laude on July 3, 1632. At Cambridge, Milton tutored the American
   theologian Roger Williams in Hebrew, in exchange for lessons in Dutch.
   There is evidence to suggest that Milton’s experiences at Cambridge
   were not altogether positive and were later to contribute to his views
   on education. On graduating from Christ's College, Milton undertook six
   years of self-directed private study in both the ancient and modern
   disciplines of theology, philosophy, history, politics, literature and
   science, in preparation for his prospective poetical career. As a
   result of such intensive study, Milton is considered to be among the
   most learned of all English poets. In a Latin poem, possibly composed
   in the mid-1630s, Milton thanks his father for supporting him during
   this period.

   After completing his private study in early 1638, Milton embarked on a
   tour of France and Italy in May of the same year, seeing the Italian
   astronomer Galileo Galilei during his journeys (There is some debate as
   to whether Milton actually talked with Galileo. Scholars have debated
   whether the term "visited" as used in Aeropagatica is evidence of a
   conversation or simply allowing Milton to see Galileo from a distance
   while the famed astronomer was under house arrest). He is recorded as
   staying at the Venerable English College in 1638. This was cut short 13
   months later by what he later termed 'sad tidings' of civil war in
   England. In June 1642, at the age of 33, Milton married 17 year-old
   Mary Powell. One month later, she visited her family and did not
   return. Over the next three years, Milton published a series of
   pamphlets arguing for the legality and morality of divorce. The first
   was entitled The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, in which he
   attacked the English marriage law (which had been taken over almost
   unchanged from medieval Catholicism, sanctioning divorce on the grounds
   of incompatibility or childlessness only). In 1645, Mary finally
   returned. In 1646, her family, having been ejected from Oxford for
   supporting Charles I in the Civil War, moved in with the couple. They
   had four children: Anne, Mary, John, and Deborah. Wife Mary died on May
   5, 1652, from complications following Deborah's birth on May 2, which
   may have affected Milton deeply, as evidenced by his 23rd sonnet. In
   June, John died at 15 months; his three sisters all survived to
   adulthood. On November 12, 1656, Milton married Katherine Woodcock. She
   died on February 3, 1658, less than four months after giving birth to
   their daughter, Katherine, who died on March 17. On February 24, 1663,
   Milton married Elizabeth Minshull, who cared for him until his death on
   November 8, 1674. During the Great Plague of London in 1665, Milton
   retired to Chalfont St Giles (his only extant home), which is where he
   completed his epic poem Paradise Lost. He is buried in St
   Giles-without-Cripplegate church in the City of London.

Career

   Milton spent several years devoted almost entirely to prose work in the
   service of the Puritan and Parliamentary cause. The onset of glaucoma,
   caused by his labours setting the typeface for numerous controversial
   pamphlets (Thus straining his optic nerve), eventualy led to blindness,
   forcing him, from 1654, to dictate his verse and prose to his daughter,
   Deborah, as an amanuensis. Milton wrote propaganda for the English
   Republic in the early 1650s, including the Eikonoklastes, which
   attempts to justify the execution of Charles I. When he was caught and
   arrested in October 1659 he was not summarily executed: several
   influential people had spoken on his behalf, including the poet Andrew
   Marvell, a former assistant. Milton then lived in retirement, devoting
   himself once more to poetical work, and publishing Paradise Lost in
   1667, the epic by which he attained universal fame (blind and
   impoverished, he sold the publishing rights to this work on April 27
   that year for £10), to be followed by Paradise Regained, together with
   Samson Agonistes, a drama on the Greek model, in 1671.

   Milton penned Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained through dictation
   because of his blindness. This required him to store vast portions of
   the poems in his memory for oral recitation—all the more remarkable
   considering how much planning such complex works would require, even on
   paper, yet Milton did the organizing without such tactile aids.
   Milton later in life
   Enlarge
   Milton later in life

   Despite the comprehensive scope of Milton's intellectual enquiry,
   crucial influences upon Milton’s literary work can be easily found and
   include the Biblical books of Genesis, Job, and Psalms, as well as
   Homer, Virgil, and Lucan. Milton’s favorite historian was Sallust;
   however, though Milton's work often betrays his classical and biblical
   influences, allusions to Spenser, Sidney, Donne, and Shakespeare also
   are detectable. Some commentators have suggested that Milton also
   sought to undermine the tropes and style of cavalier poets such as John
   Wilmot, Earl of Rochester and Sir John Suckling in the conversations of
   Adam and Eve. Milton's literary career cast such a formidable shadow
   over English poetry in the 18th and 19th centuries that he was often
   judged favorably against all other English poets, including
   Shakespeare. We can point to Lucy Hutchinson's epic poem about the fall
   of Humanity, Order and Disorder (1679), and John Dryden's The State of
   Innocence and the Fall of Man: an Opera (1677) as evidence of an
   immediate cultural influence.

   The unparalleled scope of Paradise Lost, his masterpiece, sees Milton
   justifying the ways of God to men, and the poem also depicts the
   creation of the universe, earth, and humanity; conveys the origin of
   sin, death, and evil; imagines events in Hell, the Kingdom of Heaven,
   the garden of Eden, and the sacred history of Israel; engages with
   political ideas of tyranny, liberty and justice; and defends
   theological positions on predestination, free will, and salvation.
   Milton's influence on the literature of the Romantic era was profound.
   John Keats found the yoke of Milton's style debilitating; he exclaimed
   that "Miltonic verse cannot be written but in an artful or rather
   artist's humour." Keats felt that Paradise Lost was a "beautiful and
   grand curiosity," but his own unfinished attempt at epic poetry,
   Hyperion, is said to have suffered from Keats's failed attempt to
   cultivate a distinct epic voice. Mary Shelley's seminal work
   Frankenstein draws heavily on Paradise Lost. The novel begins with a
   quote from Paradise Lost, and the relationship between the Creature and
   Dr. Frankenstein is often seen as a metaphor for the relationship
   between God and Man in Paradise Lost. The Victorian age witnessed a
   continuation of Milton's influence; George Eliot and Thomas Hardy being
   particularly inspired by Milton's poetry and biography. By contrast,
   the 20th century, owing primarily to the critical efforts of T. S.
   Eliot and Ezra Pound, witnessed a reduction in Milton's stature. Aside
   from his importance to literary history, Milton's career has impacted
   upon the modern world in other ways. Milton coined many familiar modern
   words; in Paradise Lost readers were confronted by neologisms like
   dreary, pandæmonium, acclaim, rebuff, self-esteem, unaided, impassive,
   enslaved, jubilant, serried, solaced, and satanic. In terms of
   politics, Milton's Areopagitica and republican writings were consulted
   during the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of
   America. More recently, there has been renewed interest in the poet's
   greatest work following the publication of Philip Pullman's His Dark
   Materials trilogy, which is heavily based on Paradise Lost.

   The John Milton Society for the Blind was founded in 1928 by Helen
   Keller to develop an interdenominational ministry that would bring
   spiritual guidance and religious literature to deaf and blind persons.

Trivia

     * A 1668 edition of Paradise Lost, reported to be Milton's personal
       copy, is now housed in the archives of the University of Western
       Ontario.
     * John Milton was born on Bread Street, the same road where The
       Myrmaid Tavern was located, where William Shakespeare and Ben
       Jonson were often seen drinking.
     * The antagonist in The Devil's Advocate is named "John Milton" after
       the poet and because of the 'devil' connection through Paradise
       Lost.
     * The metal band Cradle of Filth's album Damnation and a Day has many
       songs related to the fall of man from the view of Lucifer and is
       loosely based on Paradise Lost.
     * John Milton is also credited for the quote "A good book is the
       precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on
       purpose to a life beyond life." This quote is seen in many public
       libraries, including the New York Public Library.
     * In the popular video game Deus Ex, one of the three possible ending
       quotes is a line from Milton's Paradise Lost: "Better to reign in
       hell, than serve in heaven."

Poetic & Dramatic Works

     * Paradise Lost (1667)
     * Samson Agonistes (1671)
     * Paradise Regained (1671)
     * Il Penseroso (1633)
     * L'Allegro (1631)
     * Comus (a masque)(1634)
     * Lycidas (1638)
     * Poems, &c, Upon Several Occasions (1673)

Political, Philosophical & Religious Prose

     * Areopagitica (essay) (1644)
     * Of Education (1644)
     * The Reason for Church Government (1642)
     * Of True Religion (1673)
     * Of Reformation (1641)
     * Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641)
     * Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
     * Judgement of Martin Bucer Concerning Divorce (1644)
     * Animadversions (1641)
     * Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)
     * Tetrachordon (1645)
     * Colasterion (1645)
     * Poems of Mr John Milton, Both English and Latin (1645)
     * The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)
     * Eikonoklastes (1649)
     * Defensio pro Populo Anglicano (1651)
     * Defensio Seconda (1654)
     * A treatise of Civil Power (1659)
     * The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings from the Church (1659)
     * Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1659)
     * Brief Notes Upon a Late Sermon (1660)
     * Accedence Commenced Grammar (1669)
     * History of Britain (1670)
     * Art of Logic (1672)
     * Epistolae Familiaries (1674)
     * Prolusiones (1674)

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