John Milton Biography Born

John Milton

Biography: • • • Born: December 9, 1608 Bread Street, Cheapside, London, England • • • Died: November 8, 1674 (aged 65) Bunhill, London, England • • Occupation: Poet, Prose Polemicist, Civil Servant for the English Commonwealth • • Influences: Dante Alighieri, Ludovico Ariosto, The Bible, Homer, Ovid, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Virgil • • Influenced: William Blake, John Keats, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth

• The family's financial prosperity afforded Milton to be taught classical languages, first by private tutors at home, followed by entrance to St. Paul's School at age twelve, in 1620 • Milton's father was also a composer of church music, and Milton himself experienced a lifelong delight in music. • In 1625, Milton was admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge.

Cambridge years John Milton matriculated Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1625 • in preparation for becoming an Anglican priest, stayed on to obtain his Master of Arts degree on 3 July 1632 • due to his hair, which he wore long, and his general delicacy of manner, was known as the "Lady of Christ's“

• began to write poetry in Latin, Italian, and English • one of Milton‘s earliest works, 'On the Death of a Fair Infant' (1626), was written after his sister Anne Phillips has suffered from a miscarriage. • While at Cambridge he wrote a number of his well-known shorter English poems, among them Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, his Epitaph on the admirable Dramatick Poet, W. Shakespeare, his first poem to appear in print, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso.

Study, poetry, and travel • Upon receiving his MA in 1632, Milton retired to his father’s country homes at Hammersmith and Horton and undertook six years of self-directed private study by reading both ancient and modern works of theology, philosophy, history, politics, literature and science, in preparation for his prospective poetical career. • Milton continued to write poetry during this period of study: his masques Arcades and Comus were composed for noble patrons, and he contributed his pastoral elegy Lycidas to a memorial collection for one of his Cambridge classmates in 1638. Drafts of these poems are preserved in Milton’s poetry notebook, known as the Trinity Manuscript because it is now kept at Trinity College, Cambridge. • He embarked upon a tour of France, Italy and Switzerland

A Married man. . . • In the spring of 1642, Milton married Mary Powell, 17 years old to his 34 • In 1643, Milton published the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, which had its second, longer edition in early 1644. In 1644, Milton also published The Judgement of Martin Bucer Concerning Divorce. • Areopagitica, an oration advocating freedom of the press, in late 1644 • when Mary Powell returned Milton had made plans to remarry /daughter Anne was born in 1646/ • daughter Mary was born in 1648 in High Holborn

. . . a year of sadness. . . • The year 1652 was one of many personal losses for Milton. In February, Milton lost his sight. This prompted him to write the sonnet "When I Consider How My Light is Spent. " In May, 1652, Mary gave birth to a daughter, Deborah, and died a few days later. In June, one year-old John died.

Civil war and prose tracts • Milton put poetry aside and began to write anti-episcopal prose tracts in the service of the Puritan and Parliamentary cause • Milton’s first foray into polemics was Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in England (1641), followed by Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and The Reason of Church Government Urged against Prelaty. With frequent passages of real eloquence lighting up the rough controversial style of the period, and with a wide knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity, he vigorously attacked the High-church party of the Church of England their leader, William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. • in 1644 he wrote his short tract, Of Education, urging a reform of the national universities. • published a series of pamphlets arguing for the legality and morality of divorce and 1645 Poems – the only poetry of his to see print until Paradise Lost appeared in 1667.

Philosophical, political, and religious views Philosophy By the late 1650 s, Milton was a proponent of monism or animist materialism, the notion that a single material substance which is "animate, self-active, and free" composes everything in the universe: from stones and trees and bodies to minds, souls, angels, and God. Milton devised this position to avoid the mind-body dualism of Plato and Descartes as well as the mechanistic determinism of Hobbes. Milton's monism is most notably reflected in Paradise Lost when he has angels eat and have sex Politics Milton's fervent commitment to republicanism in an age of absolute monarchies was both unpopular and dangerous. In coming centuries, Milton would be claimed as an early apostle of liberalism Religion Milton was writing at a time of religious and political flux in England. His poetry and prose reflect deep convictions, often reacting to contemporary circumstances, but it is not always easy to locate the writer in any obvious religious category. His views may be described as broadly Protestant. As an accomplished artist and an official in the government of Oliver Cromwell, it is not always easy to distinguish where artistic licence and polemical intent overshadowed Milton's personal views.

• Like many Renaissance artists before him, Milton integrated Christian theology into classical modes • In his early poems, the poet narrator express a tension between vice and virtue, the latter invariably related to Protestantism • In his later poems, Milton's theological concerns become more explicit. In Of Reformation (1641), Milton expressed his dislike for Catholicism and episcopacy, presenting Rome as a modern Babylon, and bishops as Egyptian taskmasters. These analogies conform to Milton's puritanical preference for Old Testament imagery. Milton often presents England, as an elect nation similar to the Old Testament Israel, and shows its leader, Oliver Cromwell, as a latter-day Moses • The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 began a new phase in Milton's work:

• In Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes Milton shows the end of the godly Commonwealth • The Garden of Eden allegory reflects Milton's view of England's recent Fall from Grace, while Samson's blindness and captivity – mirroring Milton's own failing sight – is a metaphor for England's blind acceptance of Charles II as king. However, despite the Restoration of the monarchy Milton did not lose his own faith; Samson shows how the loss of national salvation did not necessarily preclude the salvation of the individual, while Paradise Regained expresses Milton's continuing belief in the promise of Christian salvation through Jesus Christ.

Poetic and dramatic works • • • L'Allegro (1631) Il Penseroso (1633) Comus (a masque)(1634) Lycidas (1638) Poems of Mr John Milton, Both English and Latin (1645) Paradise Lost (1667) Paradise Regained (1671) Samson Agonistes (1671) Poems Upon Several Occasions (1673)

Political, philosophical and religious prose • • • • • • Of Reformation (1641) Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641) The Reason of Church Government (1642) Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643) Judgement of Martin Bucer Concerning Divorce (1644) Of Education (1644) Areopagitica (1644) Colasterion (1645) The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) Defensio pro Populo Anglicano [First Defense] (1651) Defensio Secunda [Second Defense] (1654) A treatise of Civil Power (1659) The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings from the Church (1659) The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660) Brief Notes Upon a Late Sermon (1660) History of Britain (1670) Artis logicae plenior institutio [Art of Logic] (1672) Of True Religion (1673) Epistolae Familiaries (1674) Prolusiones (1674) De doctrina christiana (1823)