John Milton's career as a writer of prose and poetry spans three distinct eras: Stuart England; the Civil War (1642-1648) and Interregnum, including the Commonwealth (1649-1653) and Protectorate (1654-1660); and the Restoration. When Elizabeth I, the...

John Milton's claim to continued recollection rests primarily, of course, on his preeminence as a poet. In 1642 he said that he had been forced by a sense of political duty to interrupt his efforts to become "a Poet soaring in the high region of his...

England's preeminent epic poet, John Milton was also the author of a logic textbook: Joannis Miltoni Angli, Artis logicae plenior institutio, ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata, adjecta est praxis annalytica et Petri Rami vita (Englishman John Milton's...

Milton, John(1608 and the annual bibliographies of Studies in Philology and...

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, prose polemicist, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth. Most famed for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton is celebrated as well for his treatise condemning censorship,...

To the Editor: Lies, damn lies and defamation. That’s how Mark Twain might have characterized “Come Back to San Gennaro: The Mob Is Deeply Missed” [April 30], a thoroughly slanted depiction of both the Italian-American community and Mulberry Street. For one thing, Little Italy is...

Today is Saturday, Dec. 9, the 343rd day of 2006. There are 22 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On Dec. 9, 1854, Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," was published in England.On this date:In 1608, English poet John...

As Chris Rock had it, something sure has changed in America when the best golfer is black and the best rapper, white. Rock's choice of words is remarkable: not richest, not most famous, but best. Because there can be no doubt about it anymore, and...

In the following excerpt, Kahn discusses Milton's Samson Agonistes in the context of Renaissance ideas of state authority, focusing on the tragic nature of the choices individuals had to make when ethical and political demands were at odds.

In the following essay, Lowenstein examines tension in Milton's later revolutionary writings. The critic suggests that, in serving both historiographic and mythopoeic functions, Milton understood the need for a poet to be true to historical fact while also fulfilling artistic and creative criteria.

Below, Stavely compares Milton's syntax and style with those of several contemporaneous political polemicists and demonstrates that his selective use of the Ciceronian model of rhetoric—unfashionable at the time—aptly facilitated his millennial message.