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John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse and including twelve books, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval.
- Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the...
- Bread Street
Bread Street is one of the 26 wards of the City of London,...
- Areopagitica
Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of...
- Paradise Lost
- Overview
- Early life and education
- Travel abroad
John Milton (1608–74) is considered the most significant English writer after William Shakespeare. His epic Paradise Lost, classical tragedy Samson Agonistes, and pastoral elegy Lycidas are widely regarded as the greatest poems of their kind in English. He is also known for such prose works as Areopagitica—a fierce defense of freedom of speech.
Where was John Milton educated?
When he was 11, John Milton entered St. Paul’s School, London, where he excelled in Greek, Latin, and Italian. He composed Latin verse and translated a psalm from Hebrew into English verse and later into Greek. He sharpened his rhetorical skills at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and stayed in Florence, meeting Galileo and befriending Italian literati.
How did John Milton influence others?
When John Milton’s Paradise Lost appeared in 1667, only people close to him commended it. By the early 1700s, however, John Dryden had written an operatic adaptation of it, and Alexander Pope had parodied it in The Rape of the Lock. Later Percy Bysshe Shelley modeled Prometheus in Prometheus Unbound (1820) on Milton’s Satan.
John Milton (born December 9, 1608, London, England—died November 8?, 1674, London?) English poet, pamphleteer, and historian, considered the most significant English author after William Shakespeare.
Milton’s paternal grandfather, Richard, was a staunch Roman Catholic who expelled his son John, the poet’s father, from the family home in Oxfordshire for reading an English (i.e., Protestant) Bible. Banished and disinherited, Milton’s father established in London a business as a scrivener, preparing documents for legal transactions. He was also a moneylender, and he negotiated with creditors to arrange for loans on behalf of his clients. He and his wife, Sara Jeffrey, whose father was a merchant tailor, had three children who survived their early years: Anne, the oldest, followed by John and Christopher. Though Christopher became a lawyer, a Royalist, and perhaps a Roman Catholic, he maintained throughout his life a cordial relationship with his older brother. After the Stuart monarchy was restored in 1660, Christopher, among others, may have interceded to prevent the execution of his brother.
The elder John Milton, who fostered cultural interests as a musician and composer, enrolled his son John at St. Paul’s School, probably in 1620, and employed tutors to supplement his son’s formal education. Milton was privately tutored by Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian who may have influenced his gifted student in religion and politics while they maintained contact across subsequent decades. At St. Paul’s Milton befriended Charles Diodati, a fellow student who would become his confidant through young adulthood. During his early years, Milton may have heard sermons by the poet John Donne, dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was within view of his school. Educated in Latin and Greek there, Milton in due course acquired proficiency in other languages, especially Italian, in which he composed some sonnets and which he spoke as proficiently as a native Italian, according to the testimony of Florentines whom he befriended during his travel abroad in 1638–39.
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Milton enrolled at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1625, presumably to be educated for the ministry. A year later he was “rusticated,” or temporarily expelled, for a period of time because of a conflict with one of his tutors, the logician William Chappell. He was later reinstated under another tutor, Nathaniel Tovey. In 1629 Milton was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree, and in 1632 he received a Master of Arts degree. Despite his initial intent to enter the ministry, Milton did not do so, a situation that has not been fully explained. Possible reasons are that Milton lacked respect for his fellow students who were planning to become ministers but whom he considered ill-equipped academically or that his Puritan inclinations, which became more radical as he matured, caused him to dislike the hierarchy of the established church and its insistence on uniformity of worship; perhaps, too, his self-evident disaffection impelled the Church of England to reject him for the ministry.
Overall, Milton was displeased with Cambridge, possibly because study there emphasized Scholasticism, which he found stultifying to the imagination. Moreover, in correspondence with a former tutor at St. Paul’s School, Alexander Gill, Milton complained about a lack of friendship with fellow students. They called him the “Lady of Christ’s College,” perhaps because of his fair complexion, delicate features, and auburn hair. Nonetheless, Milton excelled academically. At Cambridge he composed several academic exercises called prolusions, which were presented as oratorical performances in the manner of a debate. In such exercises, students applied their learning in logic and rhetoric, among other disciplines. Milton authorized publication of seven of his prolusions, composed and recited in Latin, in 1674, the year of his death.
In 1638, accompanied by a manservant, Milton undertook a tour of the Continent for about 15 months, most of which he spent in Italy, primarily Rome and Florence. The Florentine academies especially appealed to Milton, and he befriended young members of the Italian literati, whose similar humanistic interests he found gratifying. Invigorated by thei...
- Albert C. Labriola
Learn about John Milton, a prolific and influential poet and prose writer of the English Renaissance. Explore his life, career, and major works, such as Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
John Milton - The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. John Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608, into a middle-class family.
Apr 2, 2014 · John Milton, English poet, pamphleteer, and historian, is best known for writing "Paradise Lost," widely regarded as the greatest epic poem in English. Updated: Aug 15, 2019. Getty Images....
Sep 2, 2019 · John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet and intellectual who wrote during a period of political and religious turmoil. He’s best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, which depicts the fall of Lucifer and the temptation of mankind. Fast Facts: John Milton. Full Name: John Milton.
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