John Milton (1608 - 74) : Some Important Points Which Shaped His Life and Career

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Some Important Points Which Shaped His Life and Career

  • A 17th century writer is known for his literary genius.
  • The origins of the complex were quite complex- James I and his son Charles Lacked the flexibility of Queen Elizabeth.
  • Rise of the commercial classes, with their economic individualism and Puritan morality.
  • Charles՚s trial and execution in 1649.
  • High-minded Puritan aristocrats who supported Parliament, and pockets of royalism in Puritan parts of the country.
  • “I was born in London of an honest family; … My father destined me from a child to the pursuits of literature; and my appetite for knowledge was so voracious, that, from twelve years of age, I hardly ever left my studies, or went to bed before midnight.” - Milton

His Poetic Career

  • The young Milton began his career with verse paraphrases of Psalms and Ovidian Latin elegies.
  • The love for Latin showed in his innumerable elegies written for different people.

His Works

  • L ‘Allegro and’ II Penseros which thought to have been written at Cambridge, as companion poems filled with appropriate imagery and tone.
  • Another major work is Lycidas, written on the death f Edward King, a fellow student of Milton՚s at Cambridge. The elegy is noted for classical, Christian and personal things which make it highly formal and individual.
  • The poem (Lycidas) begins with eloquent statement through the reminiscence of his student days with King. The poet contemplates the dead shepherd. The poem ends with determination to complete the tasks that lie to hand.

Another Major Work- Paradise Lost

  • Paradise Lost was a heroic poem, but its theme was to be far above the themes of conventional heroic poems. Milton՚s statement of his theme at the beginning of Book 1 marks the ambitious and comprehensive nature of task and establishes his status as an epic poet.
  • Paradise Lost shows Milton as Christian Humanist using all the resources of the European literary tradition that had come down to him- biblical, classical, medieval and Renaissance.
  • The speeches of Satan and his followers in Book 1 and Book 2 are magnificent in their way, “Miltonic” in the popular sense of the word.
  • They represent the attractiveness of plausible evil.
  • All books are full of imagery, rhetoric and Miltonic verses.
  • Book 9 is one of the great books. This book vividly describes the sweet conversation between Adam and Eve. The temptation scene itself shows the skilled orator taking advantage of simplicity.

Manishika