John Milton

 Literature / Poet-Writer's Datebook

 

Brief biography and key works of English poet John Milton, English poet and essayist famous for the poem "Paradise Lot". 

 

John Milton was one of the greatest English poets with huge influence on English poetry. He is best known for Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Lycidas.   

John Milton's Life in a Nutshell

John Milton was born on December 9, 1698 in London. His father was a successful lawyer ad composer who was wealthy enough to afford a second house in the country. Milton spent six years in private study after finishing university in Cambridge, 1632. He was a Puritan, who gave up his original ambition to become a priest, instead, decided to devote his life to God as a poet. He traveled in Europe and served as Latin secretary to the Commonwealth government. In 1652 he became blind.

Milton was educated in Cambridge University and began to write poetry while he was at college. At the age of 29, he completed one of his first major works, Lycidas, regarded as perhaps the finest short poem in English. Five years later, in 1642, the English Civil War broke, as Oliver Cromwell fought to overthrow the king.  Milton stopped composing poetry and wrote political essays supprting Cromwell. In the same period Milton was slowly losing his sight.  

 

Paradise Lost and Blind Milton

The monarchy was restored in 1660. Milton retired to devote himself to poetry once again. His ambition had always been to compose an epic poem in comparison to the works of ancient writers such as Homer and Virgil. By then completely blind, he began dictating his great poem, Paradise Lost, to his wife and daughters. The work, published when he was 55, was immediately recognized as an outstanding achiement. IT tells the soty of how Satan was thrown out of Heaven and how he came to Earth to corrupt Adam and Eve. The themes of war and areligious conflict it explores constantly remind the reader of the troubled tiems Milton lived throguht.

He died at the age of 65, November 8, 1674.

 

"And all amid them stood the tree of life, High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold; and next to life Our death the tree of knowledge grew fast by, Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill."  ~ John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV

 

Works by John Milton

"On the Morning of Christ's Nativity", 1629

"L'Allegro", c. 1631

"Il Penseroso", c. 1631

Comus, 1634

Lycidas, 1637

Areopagitica, 1644

Poems, 1645

Paradise Lost, 1667

Paradise Regained, 1671

Samson Agonistes, 1671

 

Photo Credit:

John Milton. en.wikipedia.org / public domain.

 

Resources:

Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994

McGovern, Una, Ed. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers / Harrap Publishers, 2002

Ousby, Ian.  The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997

 

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