86-) English Literature
John Milton
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John
Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674, London, England) was an English poet
and intellectual, pamphleteer, and historian, considered the most significant
English author after William Shakespeare. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost,
written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time
of immense religious flux and political upheaval. It addressed the fall of man,
including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and God's
expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost elevated Milton's
reputation as one of history's greatest poets. He also served as a civil
servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later
under Oliver Cromwell.
Milton
is best known for Paradise Lost, widely regarded as the greatest epic poem in
English. Together with Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, it confirms
Milton’s reputation as one of the greatest English poets. In his prose works
Milton advocated the abolition of the Church of England and the execution of
Charles I. From the beginning of the English Civil Wars in 1642 to long after
the restoration of Charles II as king in 1660, he espoused in all his works a
political philosophy that opposed tyranny and state-sanctioned religion. His
influence extended not only through the civil wars and interregnum but also to
the American and French revolutions. In his works on theology, he valued
liberty of conscience, the paramount importance of Scripture as a guide in
matters of faith, and religious toleration toward dissidents. As a civil
servant, Milton became the voice of the English Commonwealth after 1649 through
his handling of its international correspondence and his defense of the
government against polemical attacks from abroad.
Milton
achieved fame and recognition during his lifetime; his celebrated Areopagitica
(1644), written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among
history's most influential and impassioned defences of freedom of speech and
freedom of the press. His desire for freedom extended beyond his philosophy and
was reflected in his style, which included his introduction of new words
(coined from Latin and Ancient Greek) to the English language. He was the first
modern writer to employ unrhymed verse outside of the theatre or translations.
Milton
is described as the "greatest English author" by biographer William
Hayley, and he remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers
in the English language", though critical reception has oscillated in the
centuries since his death, often on account of his republicanism. Samuel
Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a poem which ... with respect to design
may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among
the productions of the human mind", though he (a Tory) described Milton's
politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly republican". Milton
was revered by poets such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Thomas
Hardy.
Phases
of Milton's life parallel the major historical and political divisions in
Stuart England at the time. In his early years, Milton studied at Christ's
College, Cambridge, and then travelled, wrote poetry mostly for private
circulation, and launched a career as pamphleteer and publicist under Charles
I's increasingly autocratic rule and Britain's breakdown into constitutional
confusion and ultimately civil war. While once considered dangerously radical
and heretical, Milton contributed to a seismic shift in accepted public
opinions during his life that ultimately elevated him to public office in
England. The Restoration of 1660 and his loss of vision later deprived Milton
much of his public platform, but he used the period to develop many of his
major works.
Milton's
views developed from extensive reading, travel, and experience that began with
his days as a student at Cambridge in the 1620s and continued through the
English Civil War, which started in 1642 and continued until 1651. By the time
of his death in 1674, Milton was impoverished and on the margins of English
intellectual life but famous throughout Europe and unrepentant for political
choices that placed him at odds with governing authorities.
Early
life and education John Milton was born
in Bread Street, London, on 9 December 1608, the son of composer John Milton
and his wife Sarah Jeffrey. The senior John Milton (1562–1647) moved to London
around 1583 after being disinherited by his devout Catholic father Richard
"the Ranger" Milton for embracing Protestantism. In London, the
senior John Milton married Sarah Jeffrey (1572–1637) and found lasting
financial success as a scrivener. He lived in and worked from a house in
Cheapside at Bread Street, where the Mermaid Tavern was located. The elder
Milton was noted for his skill as a composer of music, and this talent left his
son with a lifelong appreciation for music and friendships with musicians such
as Henry Lawes.
The
prosperity of Milton's father allowed his eldest son to obtain a private tutor,
Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian with an MA from the University of St
Andrews. Young's influence also served as the poet's introduction to religious
radicalism.[10] After Young's tutorship, Milton attended St Paul's School in
London, where he began the study of Latin and Greek; the classical languages
left an imprint on both his poetry and prose in English (he also wrote in Latin
and Italian).
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.
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
1632, after seven years at Cambridge, Milton returned to his family home, now
in Hammersmith, on the outskirts of London. Three years later, perhaps because
of an outbreak of the plague, the family relocated to a more pastoral setting,
Horton, in Buckinghamshire. In these two locations, Milton spent approximately
six years in studious retirement, during which he read Greek and Latin authors
chiefly. Without gainful employment, Milton was supported by his father during
this period.
Milton's
first datable compositions are two psalms written at age 15 at Long Bennington.
One contemporary source is Brief Lives of John Aubrey, an uneven compilation
including first-hand reports. In the work, Aubrey quotes Christopher, Milton's
younger brother: "When he was young, he studied very hard and sat up very
late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock at night". Aubrey adds,
"His complexion exceeding faire—he was so faire that they called him the
Lady of Christ's College."
In
1625, Milton gained entry to Christ's College at the University of Cambridge,
where he graduated with a BA in 1629, ranking fourth of 24 honours graduates
that year in the University of Cambridge. Preparing, at that time, to become an
Anglican priest, he stayed on at Cambridge where he received his MA on 3 July
1632.
Milton
may have been rusticated (suspended) in his first year at Cambridge for
quarrelling with his tutor, Bishop William Chappell. He was certainly at home
in London in the Lent Term 1626; there he wrote Elegia Prima, his first Latin
elegy, to Charles Diodati, a friend from St Paul's. Based on remarks of John
Aubrey, Chappell "whipt" Milton. This story is now disputed, though
certainly Milton disliked Chappell. Historian Christopher Hill notes that Milton
was apparently rusticated, and that the differences between Chappell and Milton
may have been either religious or personal. It is also possible that, like
Isaac Newton four decades later, Milton was sent home from Cambridge because of
the plague, which impacted Cambridge significantly in 1625.
At
Cambridge, Milton was on good terms with Edward King; he later dedicated
"Lycidas" to him. Milton also befriended Anglo-American dissident and
theologian Roger Williams. Milton tutored Williams in Hebrew in exchange for
lessons in Dutch. Despite developing a reputation for poetic skill and general
erudition, Milton suffered from alienation among his peers during his time at
Cambridge. Having once watched his fellow students attempting comedy upon the
college stage, he later observed, "they thought themselves gallant men,
and I thought them fools".
Milton
also was disdainful of the university curriculum, which consisted of stilted
formal debates conducted in Latin on abstruse topics. His own corpus is not
devoid of humour, notably his sixth prolusion and his epitaphs on the death of
Thomas Hobson. While at Cambridge, he wrote a number of his well-known shorter
English poems, including "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity",
"Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W. Shakespeare" (his first
poem to appear in print), L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso.
Study,
poetry, and travel abroad
After
receiving his MA, Milton moved to Hammersmith, his father's new home since the
previous year. He also lived at Horton, Berkshire, from 1635 and undertook six
years of self-directed private study. Hill argues that this was not retreat
into a rural idyll; Hammersmith was then a "suburban village" falling
into the orbit of London, and even Horton was becoming deforested and suffered
from the plague.[19] He read both ancient and modern works of theology,
philosophy, history, politics, literature, and science in preparation for a
prospective poetical career. Milton's intellectual development can be charted
via entries in his commonplace book (like a scrapbook), now in the British
Library. As a result of such intensive study, Milton is considered to be among
the most learned of all English poets. In addition to his years of private
study, Milton had command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian
from his school and undergraduate days; he also added Old English to his
linguistic repertoire in the 1650s while researching his History of Britain,
and probably acquired proficiency in Dutch soon after.
Milton
continued to write poetry during this period of study; his Arcades and Comus
were both commissioned for masques composed for noble patrons, connections of
the Egerton family, and performed in 1632 and 1634 respectively. Comus argues
for the virtuousness of temperance and chastity. He contributed his pastoral
elegy Lycidas to a memorial collection for one of his fellow-students at
Cambridge. 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.
In
May 1638, accompanied by a manservant, Milton embarked upon a tour of France
and Italy for 15 months that lasted until 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. For
specific details of what happened within Milton's "grand tour", there
appears to be just one primary source: Milton's own Defensio Secunda. There are
other records, including some letters and some references in his other prose
tracts, but the bulk of the information about the tour comes from a work that,
according to Barbara Lewalski, "was not intended as autobiography but as
rhetoric, designed to emphasise his sterling reputation with the learned of
Europe."
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 earned him friends in Florentine intellectual circles,
and he met the astronomer Galileo who was under house arrest at Arcetri, as
well as others. Milton probably visited the Florentine Academy and the Accademia
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 attended a dinner given by the
English College, Rome, despite his dislike for the Society of Jesus, 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
Giambattista 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
his childhood friend Diodati 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 that 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
spending 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 before finally arriving back in En
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 their admiration for him, he corresponded with his
Italian friends after his return to England, though he never saw them again.
While in Florence, Milton also met with Galileo, who was under virtual house
arrest. The circumstances of this extraordinary meeting, whereby a young
Englishman about 30 years old gained access to the aged and blind astronomer,
are unknown. (Galileo would become the only contemporary whom Milton mentioned
by name in Paradise Lost.) While in Italy, Milton learned of the death in 1638
of Charles Diodati, his closest boyhood companion from St. Paul’s School,
possibly a victim of the plague; he also learned of impending civil war in
England, news that caused him to return home sooner than anticipated. Back in
England, Milton took up residence in London, not far from Bread Street, where
he had been born. In his household were John and Edward Phillips—sons of his
sister, Anne—whom he tutored. Upon his return he composed an elegy in Latin,
“Epitaphium Damonis” (“Damon’s Epitaph”), which commemorated Diodati.
gland
in either July or August 1639.
Civil
war, prose tracts, and marriage
On
returning to England where the Bishops' Wars presaged further armed conflict,
Milton began to write prose tracts against episcopacy, 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, the two defences of Smectymnuus (a group of Presbyterian
divines named from their initials; the "TY" belonged to Milton's old
tutor Thomas Young), and The Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty.
He vigorously attacked the High-church party of the Church of England and their
leader William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, with frequent passages of real
eloquence lighting up the rough controversial style of the period, and
deploying a wide knowledge of church history.
He
was supported by his father's investments, but Milton became a private
schoolmaster at this time, educating his nephews and other children of the
well-to-do. This experience and discussions with educational reformer Samuel
Hartlib led him to write his short tract Of Education in 1644, urging a reform of
the national universities.
In
June 1642, Milton paid a visit to the manor house at Forest Hill, Oxfordshire,
and, aged 34, married the 17-year-old Mary Powell. The marriage got off to a
poor start as Mary did not adapt to Milton's austere lifestyle or get along
with his nephews. Milton found her intellectually unsatisfying and disliked the
royalist views she had absorbed from her family. It is also speculated that she
refused to consummate the marriage. Mary soon returned home to her parents and
did not come back until 1645, partly because of the outbreak of the Civil War.
In
the meantime, her desertion prompted Milton to publish a series of pamphlets
over the next three years arguing for the legality and morality of divorce
beyond grounds of adultery. (Anna Beer, author of a 2008 biography of Milton,
points to a lack of evidence and the dangers of cynicism in urging that it was
not necessarily the case that the private life so animated the public
polemicising.) In 1643, Milton had a brush with the authorities over these
writings, in parallel with Hezekiah Woodward, who had more trouble. It was the
hostile response accorded the divorce tracts that spurred Milton to write
Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd
Printing, to the Parlament of England, his celebrated attack on pre-printing
censorship. In Areopagitica, Milton aligns himself with the parliamentary
cause, and he also begins to synthesize the ideal of neo-Roman liberty with
that of Christian liberty. Milton also courted another woman during this time;
we know nothing of her except that her name was Davis and she turned him down.
However, it was enough to induce Mary Powell into returning to him which she
did unexpectedly by begging him to take her back. They had two daughters in
quick succession following their reconciliation.
Secretary
for Foreign Tongues
With
the Parliamentary victory in the Civil War, Milton used his pen in defence of
the republican principles represented by the Commonwealth. The Tenure of Kings
and Magistrates (1649) defended the right of the people to hold their rulers to
account, and implicitly sanctioned the regicide; Milton's political reputation
got him appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State in
March 1649. His main job description was to compose the English Republic's
foreign correspondence in Latin and other languages, but 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 defence 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 later the exiled Charles II and his party published the defence
of monarchy Defensio Regia pro Carolo Primo, written by leading humanist
Claudius Salmasius. By January of the following year, Milton was ordered to
write a defence of the English people by the Council of State. Milton worked
more slowly than usual, given the European audience and the English Republic's
desire to establish diplomatic and cultural legitimacy, as he drew on the
learning marshalled by his years of study to compose a riposte.
On
24 February 1652, Milton published his Latin defence of the English people
Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, also known as the First Defence. Milton's pure
Latin prose and evident learning exemplified in the First Defence quickly made
him a European reputation, and the work ran to numerous editions. He addressed
his Sonnet 16 to 'The Lord Generall Cromwell in May 1652' beginning
"Cromwell, our chief of men ...", although it was not published until
1654.
In
1654, Milton completed the second defence of the English nation Defensio
secunda in response to an anonymous Royalist tract "Regii Sanguinis Clamor
ad Coelum Adversus Parricidas Anglicanos" [The Cry of the Royal Blood to
Heaven Against the English Parricides], a work that made many personal attacks
on Milton. The second defence praised Oliver Cromwell, now Lord Protector,
while exhorting him to remain true to the principles of the Revolution.
Alexander Morus, to whom Milton wrongly attributed the Clamor (in fact by Peter
du Moulin), published an attack on Milton, in response to which Milton
published the autobiographical Defensio pro se in 1655. Milton held the
appointment of Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Commonwealth Council of
State until 1660, although after he had become totally blind, most of the work
was done by his deputies, Georg Rudolph Wecklein, then Philip Meadows, and from
1657 by the poet Andrew Marvell.
By
1652, Milton had become totally blind; the cause of his blindness is debated
but bilateral retinal detachment or glaucoma are most likely. His blindness
forced him to dictate his verse and prose to amanuenses who copied them out for
him; one of these was Andrew Marvell. One of his best-known sonnets, When I
Consider How My Light is Spent, titled by a later editor, John Newton, "On
His Blindness", is presumed to date from this period.
The
Restoration
Cromwell's
death in 1658 caused the English Republic to collapse into feuding military and
political factions. Milton, however, stubbornly clung to the beliefs that had
originally inspired him to write for the Commonwealth. In 1659, he published A
Treatise of Civil Power, attacking the concept of a state-dominated church (the
position known as Erastianism), as well as Considerations touching the
likeliest means to remove hirelings, denouncing corrupt practises in church
governance. As the Republic disintegrated, Milton wrote several proposals to
retain a non-monarchical government against the wishes of parliament, soldiers,
and the people.
A
Letter to a Friend, Concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth, written in
October 1659, was a response to General Lambert's recent dissolution of the
Rump Parliament.
Proposals
of certain expedients for the preventing of a civil war now feared, written in
November 1659.
The
Ready and Easy Way to Establishing a Free Commonwealth, in two editions,
responded to General Monck's march towards London to restore the Long
Parliament (which led to the restoration of the monarchy). The work is an
impassioned, bitter, and futile jeremiad damning the English people for
backsliding from the cause of liberty and advocating the establishment of an
authoritarian rule by an oligarchy set up by an unelected parliament.
Upon
the Restoration in May 1660, Milton, fearing for his life, went into hiding,
while a warrant was issued for his arrest and his writings were burnt. He
re-emerged after a general pardon was issued, but was nevertheless arrested and
briefly imprisoned before influential friends intervened, such as Marvell, now
an MP. Milton married for a third and final time on 24 February 1663, marrying
Elizabeth (Betty) Minshull, aged 24, a native of Wistaston, Cheshire. He spent
the remaining decade of his life living quietly in London, only retiring to a
cottage during the Great Plague of London—Milton's Cottage in Chalfont St.
Giles, his only extant home.
During
this period, Milton published several minor prose works, such as the grammar
textbook Art of Logic and a History of Britain. His only explicitly political
tracts were the 1672 Of True Religion, arguing for toleration (except for
Catholics), and a translation of a Polish tract advocating an elective monarchy.
Both these works were referred to in the Exclusion debate, the attempt to
exclude the heir presumptive from the throne of England—James, Duke of
York—because he was Roman Catholic. That debate preoccupied politics in the
1670s and 1680s and precipitated the formation of the Whig party and the
Glorious Revolution.
Family
Milton
and his first wife Mary Powell (1625–1652) had four children:
Anne
(born 29 July 1646) , Mary (born 25 October 1648) , John (16 March 1651 – June
1652) , Deborah (2 May 1652 – 10 August 1727
Mary
Powell died on 5 May 1652 from complications following Deborah's birth.
Milton's daughters survived to adulthood, but he always had a strained
relationship with them. On 12 November 1656, Milton was married to Katherine
Woodcock at St Margaret's, Westminster. She died on 3 February 1658, less than
four months after giving birth to her daughter Katherine, who also died.Milton
married for a third time on 24 February 1663 to Elizabeth Mynshull or Minshull
(1638–1728), the niece of Thomas Mynshull, a wealthy apothecary and
philanthropist in Manchester. The marriage took place at St Mary Aldermary in
the City of London. Despite a 31-year age gap, the marriage seemed happy,
according to John Aubrey, and lasted more than 12 years until Milton's death.
(A plaque on the wall of Mynshull's House in Manchester describes Elizabeth as
Milton's "3rd and Best wife".) Samuel Johnson, however, claims that
Mynshull was "a domestic companion and attendant" and Milton's nephew
Edward Phillips relates that Mynshull "oppressed his children in his
lifetime, and cheated them at his death".
His
nephews, Edward and John Phillips (sons of Milton's sister Anne), were educated
by Milton and became writers themselves. John acted as a secretary, and Edward
was Milton's first biographer.
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