John_Milton

John Milton, the only poet who identified himself with Puritanism, had so strong a personality that he cannot be taken to represent anyone except himself. He was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. As a poet he dominates his century from so great an altitude that he cannot be merged in it. His firm mind was a proof against Spenserian exuberance; his ear was too delicate for Johnson’s harsh prosaic verse; his superb egoism followed a single theme, the problem of morality as he himself saw it. He speaks for only one soul, his own, which was indeed strong and lofty. He was the only poet to endeavour to blend the spirit of the Renaissance and of the Reformation. Early Life Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608. When his father, John Milton Sr. was disinherited by his Roman Catholic grandfather for turning Protestant, he moved to London and established himself successfully as a notary and moneylender who paid a great deal of attention to his son’s education. Milton studied at St. Paul’s School, London, from some time between 1615 and 1620 till 1625, when he joined Christ’s College, Cambridge. At St. Paul’s, he followed the regular curriculum of Latin, Greek and Hebrew; but he also learnt several modern languages from private tutors at home. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Cambridge in March 1629 and subsequently his Master of Arts in July 1632. Here he was nicknamed ‘the Lady’ for his fineness of features and general delicate manners. His Cambridge years display little love for scholastic logic; he preferred instead the ideas and literatures of Renaissance humanism, blending a firmly rooted Christianity with Platonism. According to him he was first taken up by the sensuality of Ovidian and other Roman poetry, but later took greater interest in idealism of Dante, Petrarch, and Edmund Spenser. This was to finally lead to a fascination with Platonic philosophy and finally to the mysticism of the biblical ‘Book of Revelations’. His first poem in English, ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity’ was written in the Christmas season of 1629-30. It reflects the maturation to fullness of his poetic craft and its innate tendencies, its religious theme and its hold over form as well as meter anticipating the work of his later days. Milton’s father was both pious and passionately devoted to music, and the young Milton’s natural gifts, together with his success at school and the merits of his first verses, caused him to be consecrated to poetry and glory from an early age. He had little thought of worldly renown, but believed in an indeterminate yet sublime vocation. Being intensely laborious in his preparations, it was his habit to work until midnight from the age of twelve. He became a remarkable humanist, rivaling Buchanan as a Latin poet, and he also wrote verses in English although his exacting standard, which left him greatly dissatisfied with his own art, caused him to delay beginning his great works in the mother tongue. Religion and Propaganda On leaving Cambridge, it was assumed he would join the Church, given his scholarly and literary gifts; but he rejected this outright, staying by his attention to become a poet and scholar and deprecating the tyranny of the Church. This raised the problem of financial means, which he solved by staying with his parents for six years until 1638. He wrote ‘Ad Patrem’ (‘To Father’) expressing his gratitude and in defense of a career he had chosen. During these six years alongside writing Comus (1634) and Lycidas (1637), he also studied intensely the Greek and Latin writers and read extensively in diverse disciplines like religion, politics, philosophy, geography, history, astronomy, mathematics and music. This was a liberal scholarship that was unavailable to him in Cambridge and that he was to later deploy even in his poetry with subtlety and power. Comus was a masque that first dramatized his favoured theme of the grand conflict between good and evil, while Lycidas was his first attempt to justify God’s ways to ‘men’. In May 1638, following his mother’s death, Milton embarked upon a tour of France and Italy that lasted up to July or August 1639. His travels supplemented his study with new and direct experience of artistic and religious traditions, especially Roman Catholicism. He met famous theorists and intellectuals of the time, and was able to display his poetic skills. He first went to Calais, and then on to Paris, riding horseback, with a letter from diplomat Henry Wotton to ambassador John Scudamore. Through Scudamore, Milton met Hugo Grotius, a Dutch law philosopher, playwright and poet. Milton left France soon after this meeting. He travelled south, from Nice to Genoa, and then to Livorno and Pisa. He reached Florence in July 1638. While there, Milton enjoyed many of the sites and structures of the city. His candour of manner and erudite neo-Latin poetry made him friends in Florentine intellectual circles, and he met the astronomer Galileo, who was under virtual house arrest at Arcetri, as well as others. Milton probably visited the Florentine Academy and the Academia della Crusca along with smaller academies in the area including the Apatisti and the Svogliati. He left Florence in September to continue to Rome. With the connections from Florence, Milton was able to have easy access to Rome's intellectual society. His poetic abilities impressed those like Giovanni Salzilli, who praised Milton within an epigram. In late October, Milton, despite his dislike for the Society of Jesus, attended a dinner given by the English College, Rome, meeting English Catholics who were also guests, theologian Henry Holden and the poet Patrick Cary. He also attended musical events, including oratorios, operas and melodramas. Milton left for Naples toward the end of November, where he stayed only for a month because of the Spanish control. During that time he was introduced to Giovanni Battista Manso, patron to both Torquato Tasso and to Giovanni Battista Marino. Originally Milton wanted to leave Naples in order to travel to Sicily, and then on to Greece, but he returned to England during the summer of 1639 because of what he claimed, in Defensio Secunda, were "sad tidings of civil war in England." Matters became more complicated when Milton received word that Diodati, his childhood friend, had died. Milton in fact stayed another seven months on the continent, and spent time at Geneva with Diodati's uncle after he returned to Rome. In Defensio Secunda, Milton proclaimed he was warned against a return to Rome because of his frankness about religion, but he stayed in the city for two months and was able to experience Carnival and meet Lukas Holste, a Vatican librarian, who guided Milton through its collection. He was introduced to Cardinal Francesco Barberini who invited Milton to an opera hosted by the Cardinal. Around March Milton travelled once again to Florence, staying there for two months, attending further meetings of the academies, and spent time with friends. After leaving Florence he travelled through Lucca, Bologna, and Ferrara before coming to Venice. In Venice Milton was exposed to a model of Republicanism, later important in his political writings, but he soon found another model when he travelled to Geneva. From Switzerland, Milton travelled to Paris and then to Calais. Meanwhile, news of growing civil and political strife at home forced him to return to England, to settle in London and work as a tutor in either July or August 1639. Between 1641 and 1645, he was to write various trenchantly argued tracts on church reform, divorce and censorship that participated directly and passionately in the debates of the day. He became deeply engaged with and participating in the major issues of his day. By 1660, the culmination of civil wars in England, Milton had written at least eighteen major prose works defending the Puritan rebellion and attacking its enemies, including some supporting the regicide of Charles I. It was evidently a period when he suspended his poetic ambition in order to serve through his prose the Puritan cause in the political upheavals of the time with an exception of versifications of a few psalms and the writing of seventeen sonnets, ranging in subject from the deeply personal to the political. All of Milton’s prose works reflect a stern and ardent concern with the protection of individual freedom of speech and dignity, and condemned tyranny of any kind, whether by church or state. He repeatedly and insistently demanded the separation of religion from politics. Public and Political Life With the parliamentary victory in the Civil War, Milton used his pen in defense of the republican principles represented by the Commonwealth. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) defended popular government and implicitly sanctioned the regicide; Milton’s political reputation got him appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State in March 1649. Though Milton's main job description was to compose the English Republic's foreign correspondence in Latin, he also was called upon to produce propaganda for the regime and to serve as a censor. In October 1649 he published Eikonoklastes, an explicit defense of the regicide, in response to the Eikon Basilike, a phenomenal best-seller popularly attributed to Charles I that portrayed the King as an innocent Christian martyr. A month after Milton had tried to break this powerful image of Charles I (the literal translation of Eikonoklastes is 'the image breaker'), the exiled Charles II and his party published a defense of monarchy, Defensio Regia Pro Carolo Primo, written by the leading humanist Claudius Salmasius. By January of the following year, Milton was ordered to write a defense of the English people by the Council of State. The phases of Milton's life parallel the major historical and political divisions in Stuart Britain. Under the increasingly personal rule of Charles I and its breakdown in constitutional confusion and war, Milton studied, traveled, wrote poetry mostly for private circulation, and launched a career as pamphleteer and publicist. Under the Commonwealth of England, from being thought dangerously radical and even heretical, the shift in accepted attitudes in government placed him in public office, and he even acted as an official spokesman in certain of his publications. The Restoration 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 mourns the end of the godly Commonwealth. The Garden of Eden may allegorically reflect Milton's view of England's recent Fall from Grace, while Samson's blindness and captivity – mirroring Milton's own lost sight – may be a metaphor for England's blind acceptance of Charles II as king. Illustrated by Paradise Lost is mortalism, the belief that the soul lies dormant after the body dies. Despite the Restoration of the monarchy Milton did not lose his personal 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. The Restoration of 1660 deprived Milton, now completely blind, of his public platform, but this period saw him complete most of his major works of poetry. Milton had a great impact on the Romantic Movement in England, as shown in fellow poet William Wordsworth's sonnet London, 1802. Wordsworth calls upon him to rise from the dead and aid in returning England to its former glory. Milton's views developed from his very extensive reading, as well as travel and experience, from his student days of the 1620s to the English Revolution. By the time of his death in 1674, Milton was impoverished and on the margins of English intellectual life, yet unrepentant for his political choices, and of Europe-wide fame. Milton died of kidney failure on 8 November 1674 and was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate; according to an early biographer, his funeral was attended by “his learned and great Friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the Vulgar.” Published poetry Milton's poetry was slow to see the light of day, at least under his name. His first published poem was On Shakespear (1630), anonymously included in the Second Folio edition of Shakespeare. In the midst of the excitement attending the possibility of establishing a new English government, Milton collected his work in 1645 Poems. The anonymous edition of Comus was published in 1637, and the publication of Lycidas in 1638. Otherwise the 1645 collection was the only poetry of his to see print, until Paradise Lost appeared in 1667. Paradise Lost It’s an epic poem written in blank verse. The idea germinated from a momentous event, the fall of mankind from grace. The story is of Satan’s rebellion against God and his expulsion from heaven followed by the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Satan’s character is one of the significant figures in the world literature. His entry into the Garden of Eden, the shadow of innocence and happiness, shows Milton’s vision of perfection. The central conflict and contrast between good and evil run parallel with the contrast between heaven and hell, light and darkness, reason and passion, order and chaos and love and hate. This poem shows Milton’s power of imagination. Paradise Regained (1671) Paradise Regained is an obvious sequel to Paradise Lost. The loss made by the ‘first’ Adam is won back by the ‘second’ Adam, the Christ. Here, Christ is not crucified but overcomes Satan, the tempter, and thus Milton proved that strong integrity and humble obedience if followed, mankind can achieve anything. Milton’s religious and moral passion and his reverence for true heroism are reflected in this poem. Samson Agonistes (1671) It is one of the greatest English dramas on the Greek model and also a great tragedy. This story of the Old Testament deals with the final phase of Samson’s life. Samson in the story is highlighted everywhere. Samson, sightless in Gaza, moves from disgrace to selfless humility and with renewed spiritual strength, emerges out as God’s chosen champion. With his physical and spiritual strength, he pulls down the pillars, which support the temple of Philistine God Dragon, crushing himself and his captors. This shows Milton’s kinship with hero Samson, as Milton too was blind. Milton’s Philosophy By the late 1650s, 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 (5.433–39) and engage in sexual intercourse (8.622–29) and the De Doctrina, where he denies the dual natures of man and argues for a theory of Creation ex Deo. Milton’s Theology Like many Renaissance artists before him, Milton attempted to integrate Christian theology with classical modes. In his early poems, the poet narrator expresses a tension between vice and virtue, the latter invariably related to Protestantism. In Comus Milton may make ironic use of the Caroline court masque by elevating notions of purity and virtue over the conventions of court revelry and superstition. In his later poems, Milton's theological concerns become more explicit. In 1648 he wrote a hymn How lovely are thy dwelling fair, a paraphrase of Psalm 84, that explains his view on God. Milton embraced many heterodox Christian theological views. He rejected the Trinity, in the belief that the Son was subordinate to the Father, a position known as Arianism; and his sympathy or curiosity was probably engaged by Socinianism: in August 1650 he licensed for publication by William Dugard the Racovian Catechism, based on a non-trinitarian creed. A source has interpreted him as broadly Protestant, if not always easy to locate in a more precise religious category. In his 1641 treatise, Of Reformation, 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. He knew at least four commentaries on Genesis: those of John Calvin, Paulus Fagius, David Pareus and Andreus Rivetus. Through the Interregnum, Milton often presents England, rescued from the trappings of a worldly monarchy, as an elect nation akin to the Old Testament Israel, and shows its leader, Oliver Cromwell, as a latter-day Moses. These views were bound up in Protestant views of the Millennium, which some sects, such as the Fifth Monarchists predicted would arrive in England. Later legacy The Victorian age witnessed a continuation of Milton's influence, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy being particularly inspired by Milton's poetry and biography. By contrast, the early 20th century, with the efforts of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, witnessed a reduction in Milton's critical stature. Harold Bloom, in The Anxiety of Influence, could still write that "Milton is the central problem in any theory and history of poetic influence in English". Milton's Areopagitica is still cited as relevant to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. A quotation from Areopagitica – "A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life" – is displayed in many public libraries, including the New York Public Library. Conclusion He was a scholarly man of letters, a polemical writer, and an official serving under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval in England, and his poetry and prose reflect deep convictions and deal with contemporary issues, such as his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. As well as English, he wrote in Latin and Italian, and had an international reputation during his lifetime. After his death, Milton's critical reception oscillated a state of affairs that continued through the centuries. Samuel Johnson wrote unfavourably of his politics as those of "an acrimonious and surly republican"; but praised Paradise Lost "a poem which, considered with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind". William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author". He remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers in the English language and as a thinker of world importance.