Milton, John

Milton, John
(1608–74)
   Poet.
   Milton was born in London and was educated at the University of Cambridge. During the English Civil War, he supported the Parliamentary cause and he wrote various pamphlets, urging Church reform, freedom of the press and a more liberal attitude towards divorce. He defended the execution of King Charles I and, with the accession of King Charles II, he was imprisoned for a short time. By this stage he was blind and his friends secured his release. Today he is remembered for his poetry. One of his earliest works, ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity’, was a hymn to the incarnation. The masque Comus presented the conflict between chastity and vice, while Lycidas was a lament for a dead friend. His best-known works are Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, glorious epic poems describing the Fall and the redemption of humanity. His avowed intention was to ‘justify the ways of God to man’. They are written in blank verse and have the same scale and grandeur as dante’s Divina Commedia. In the final period of his life, he also produced Samson Agonistes, a dramatic poem portraying the final episode in the life of the blind Israelite judge Samson.
   Milton was an independent thinker. He set out his religious views in De Doctrina Christiana, published after his death. He inclined towards Arianism and he seems to have believed that matter was inherent in the Godhead. His poetry, however, remains an essential element in the canon of English literature.
   C.C. Brown, John Milton: A Literary Life (1995);
   M.H. Nicolson, John Milton: A Reader’s Guide to his Poetry (1963);
   C.A. Patrides, Milton and the Christian Tradition (1966);
   C.A. Patrides, An Annotated Critical Bibliography of John Milton (1987).

Who’s Who in Christianity . 2014.

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  • Milton, John — (1608 1674)    English poet, political figure, and au thor of tracts on political and religious issues. Though his life is to tally contained in the 17th century and so falls chronologically into a post Renaissance age, his prodigious mastery of… …   Historical Dictionary of Renaissance

  • Milton, John — ► (1608 74) Poeta inglés. Recibió una gran formación humanística. Autor del famoso poema bíblico El Paraíso perdido (1667), narración de la caída de Adán y Eva y de El Paraíso reconquistado (1671). * * * (9 dic. 1608, Londres, Inglaterra–8 nov.… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Milton, John — (1608 1674)    Poet, was b. 9th December 1608 in Bread Street, London. His f., also John, was the s. of a yeoman of Oxfordshire, who cast him off on his becoming a Protestant. He had then become a scrivener in London, and grew to be a man of good …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • Milton,John — Mil·ton (mĭlʹtən), John. 1608 1674. English poet and scholar who is best known for the epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), an account of humanity s fall from grace. * * * …   Universalium

  • MILTON, JOHN —    poet, born in London, son of a scrivener; graduated at Cambridge, and settled to study and write poetry in his father s house at Horton, 1632; in 1638 he visited Italy, being already known at home as the author of the Hymn on the Nativity,… …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

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