JOHN MILTON

The life of Milton is known to us in far greater detail than that of any other major English poet before the 18th century. There are various reasons for this fact - he was in his own time a public figure involved in major political events and often subject to personal attacks which he tried to counter by producing autobiographical evidence.

John Milton was born in London in 1608 of an "honest family". In his pamphlet The Second Defence of the People of England, which is largely a defence of himself in answer to a detractor, he tells us about his early schooling. "My father destined me from a child to the pursuits of literature; and my appetite for knowledge was so voracious that, from twelve years of age, I hardly ever left my studies, or went to bed before midnight. This primarily led to my loss of sight. My eyes were naturally weak, and I was subject to frequent headaches; which, however, could not chill the ardour of my curiosity".

The years marked the beginning of Milton's second period. Though he already showed sympathies for Parliament he married Mary Powell, the daughter of a Royalist house. The marriage proved a failure, mainly because his wife resented his Puritan austerity and his learning. It was probably as a result of this that he wrote four pamphlets in favour of divorce. These were followed by Areopagitica ( 1644), a notable pamphlet in defence of freedom of the press.

In the Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament ( ) Milton sided with Parliament. In 1649, the year of the king's execution, he was appointed Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth. The government used Latin as the language of its diplomacy and the post is comparable to the post of a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs today. In this capacity he justified the execution of the king in what is perhaps the most important of his pamphlets - The Defence of the English People (1651). By 1652 he had lost his sight completely. The restored king Charles II took no revenge on Milton for his support of the Commonwealth and the poet was able to devote his time to the writing (by dictation) of his most ambitious poetic works. He died in 1674.

His literary career traditionally divides into three periods. During the first ( ) he wrote poetry in Latin and in English: the two companion poems L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (1652) about the active life and the contemplative life, and the elegy Lycidas (1637).

The second period ( ) was the period of political pamphlets and of prose treatises. In the last period ( ) Milton produced his major works - the epic Paradise Lost was probably composed between 1658 and 1663/65 (dates are uncertain) and published in 1667, first in 10 volumes, then in 1674 in 12 volumes. Its sequel Paradise Regained was published together with the tragedy Samson Agonistes in 1671.

Milton wrote twenty-three sonnets, some of which were produced when he was very young and before his journey to Italy. Five of them are in Italian. "The major sonnets were written in the middle period of his literary career at a time when the vogue for the form had already passed”. His formal model was the Italian sonnet;it had a long tradition in the hands of poets like Dante, Petrarch and Tasso, whom he deeply admired.