John Milton (1608-1674)

„The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.“
-Paradise Lost-

One oft he most famous and extraordinary figures of English literture in general and English poetry in particular, is a man born in 1608 in Cheapside in Londen. His name - John Milton. His father was a scrivener und hat a great love for music, which also hiss on John caught at an early age. Milton was educated at St. Paul’s School and by 1625 he wentto Christ’s Collage in Cambridge. He had a very combative ans rebellious nature, attacked the curriculum and his teachers. So he very soon earned the reputition of being a rebell an critique.

In his early years Milton wrote his first poems in Latin, the language in which he succeeded admirably and could rival the best teachers of his time. But very soon he changed his intentions and declared to write his poetry in English. In this early years brillinat peoms were created, as On the morning of Christ’s Nativity, On Shakespeare or On May Morning.

In 1632 Milton left Cambridge and went home to his father’s estate at Horton in Buckinghamshire and planned to retire and devote his whole life to poetry und studying. In his time of solitude some very fine poems like On time or At a Solemn Music were written. The time alone started to change his look onto the world. His studies of theology made him more and more a religious man. For example Milton was very proud of liveing a chastise lifestyle, a virtue which he held very high. The time of solitude was quiet productive. Nevertheless after six years he had enough of his solitary life, and felt a call to action.

The second half of Miltons life made him an embittered idealist and controversialist. He had travelled to Italy, was well accepted and had many constructive contacts with locals like prelates, although his protestand belief and his catholic opponents. He planned to go to Greece, but political circumstances didn’t let him complete his journey. Back in England he worked as a teacher in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Then he became politically involved an his poetic work came to an end for nearly twenty years. Milton as an idealist thought, that a Golden Age for England would start, if bishops and kings would be removed, that would be true liberty. Milton wrote a bunch of pamphlete in which he attacked the political and religious situation in England very harshly.

In 1642 he married Mary Powell, a young girl of 17, with whome he had four children (and giving up his chastise lifestyle). Mary died in 1652. In 1656 John married again, but his wife died only one year later. During the whole time of the lord-protectorship of Cromwell an later on, he defended the Commonwealth, publishing many curragious outcries agains monarchy. After restoration of monarchy in 1660, he was hiding for a certain time, fearing for his life, but in the end he was pardoned. In that time Milton returned to poetry, working on Paradise Lost, which was published in 1667. This was his masterpiece, the work he had prepared for his whole life. A deeply religious man, paradise, the fall of satan and the fall of Man and banishment from Eden were ideal themes to be worked on. Miltons last two works Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, also treated religious topics. Samson agonistes was written according tot he model oft he old Greek tragedies and may be the most personal of all of John Milton’s poems.

Milton was a hightly moral man, believing in the high value of virtue and the good, the strengh, which comes from belief. But he was also an idealist and he himself stayed far behind his ideal (for example he never reached the calm of mind of which he writes in his poems). There was also a lot of critics on Milton: his humorlessness, his egotism, pride and arrogance. But as a poet Milton stands alone in English literature. No other English poet was more involved in the political affaires of his time, an no other every risked so much. The only English poet which could overshine Milton was William Shakespeare. Milton had a big influence on writers oft he 18th century, especially on Alexander Pope, as well as T. S. Eliot. Great writers do something once and for all, Eliot meant.