Milton, John

(born Dec. 9, 1608, London, Eng.—died Nov. 8?, 1674, London?) English poet and pamphleteer. Milton attended the University of Cambridge (1625–32), where he wrote poems in Latin, Italian, and English; these include “L'Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” both published later in Poems (1645). In 1632–39 he engaged in private study—writing the masque Comus (first performed 1634) and the elegy “Lycidas” (1638)—and toured Europe, spending most of his time in Italy. Concerned with the Puritan cause in England, he spent much of 1641–60 pamphleteering for civil and religious liberty and serving in Oliver Cromwell's government. His best-known prose is in the pamphlets Areopagitica (1644), on freedom of the press, and Of Education (1644).

He also wrote tracts on divorce and against the monarchy and the Church of England. He lost his sight &circa; 1651 and thereafter dictated his works. His first wife died in 1652, his second in 1658; he married a third time in 1663. After the Restoration he was arrested as a prominent defender of the Commonwealth but was soon released. Paradise Lost (1667, 1674), considered the greatest epic poem in English, uses blank verse and reworks Classical epic conventions to recount the Fall of Man; Milton's characterization of Satan has been widely admired. Paradise Regained (1671) is a shorter epic in which Christ overcomes Satan the tempter, and Samson Agonistes (1671) is a dramatic poem in which the Old Testament figure conquers self-pity and despair to become God's champion. History of Britain was incomplete when published in 1670, and an unfinished work on theology was discovered in 1832. Considered the greatest English poet after William Shakespeare, Milton had wide influence on later literature.

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