Milton’s Life
John Milton was born on December 9, 1608,
in London. Milton’s father was a prosperous merchant, despite the
fact that he had been disowned by his family when he converted from
Catholicism to Protestantism. Milton excelled in school, and went
on to study privately in his twenties and thirties. In 1638 he
made a trip to Italy, studying in Florence, Siena, and Rome, but
felt obliged to return home upon the outbreak of civil war in England,
in 1639. Upon his return from Italy, he began
planning an epic poem, the first ever written in English. These
plans were delayed by his marriage to Mary Powell and her subsequent
desertion of him. In reaction to these events, Milton wrote a series
of pamphlets calling for more leniency in the church’s position
on divorce. His argument brought him both greater publicity and
angry criticism from the religious establishment in England. When
the Second Civil War ended in 1648, with
King Charles dethroned and executed, Milton welcomed the new parliament
and wrote pamphlets in its support. After serving for a few years
in a civil position, he retired briefly to his house in Westminster
because his eyesight was failing. By 1652 he
was completely blind.
Despite his disability, Milton reentered civil service
under the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, the military general
who ruled the British Isles from 1653 to 1658.
Two years after Cromwell’s death, Milton’s worst fears were realized—the
Restoration brought Charles II back to the throne, and the poet
had to go into hiding to escape execution. However, he had already
begun work on the great English epic which he had planned so long
before: Paradise Lost. Now he had the opportunity
to work on it in earnest. It was published in 1667,
a year after the Great Fire of London. The greatness of Milton’s
epic was immediately recognized, and the admiring comments of the
respected poets John Dryden and Andrew Marvell helped restore Milton
to favor. He spent the ensuing years at his residence in Bunhill,
still writing prolifically. Milton died at home on November 8, 1674.
By all accounts, Milton led a studious and quiet life from his youth
up until his death.
Education
Thanks to his father’s wealth, young Milton got the best
education money could buy. He had a private tutor as a youngster.
As a young teenager he attended the prestigious St. Paul’s Cathedral
School. After he excelled at St. Paul’s he entered college at Christ’s
College at Cambridge University. At the latter, he made quite a
name for himself with his prodigious writing, publishing several
essays and poems to high acclaim. After graduating with his master’s
degree in 1632, Milton was once again accommodated
by his father. He was allowed to take over the family’s estate near
Windsor and pursue a quiet life of study. He spent 1632 to 1638—his
mid to late twenties—reading the classics in Greek and Latin and
learning new theories in mathematics and music.
Milton became fluent in many foreign and classical languages, including
Italian, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon,
and spoke some Dutch as well. His knowledge of most of these languages
was immense and precocious. He wrote sonnets in Italian as a teenager.
While a student at Cambridge, he was invited in his second year
to address the first year students in a speech written entirely
in Latin.
After Cambridge, Milton continued a quiet life of study
well through his twenties. By the age of thirty, Milton had made
himself into one of the most brilliant minds of England, and one
of the most ambitious poets it had ever produced.
Early Works
In his twenties, Milton wrote five masterful long poems,
each of them influential and important in its own separate way:
“On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” “Comus,” “Lycidas,” “Il Penseroso,”
and “L’Allegro.” Through these poems, Milton honed his skills at
writing narrative, dramatic, elegiac, philosophical, and lyrical
poetry. He had built a firm poetic foundation through his intense
study of languages, philosophy, and politics, and fused it with
his uncanny sense of tone and diction. Even in these early poems,
Milton’s literary output was guided by his faith in God. Milton
believed that all poetry served a social, philosophical, and religious
purpose. He thought that poetry should glorify God, promote religious
values, enlighten readers, and help people to become better Christians.
Aside from his poetic successes, Milton was also a prolific
writer of essays and pamphlets. These prose writings did not bring
Milton public acclaim. In fact, since his essays and pamphlets argued against
the established views of most of England, Milton was even the object
of threats. Nevertheless, he continued to form the basis for his
political and theological beliefs in the form of essays and pamphlets.
Politics
Milton’s political ideals are expressed in the many pamphlets
he wrote during his lifetime. He championed the absolute
freedom of the individual—perhaps because he had been so often betrayed
by the institutions in which he put his trust. His distrust of institutions
was accompanied by his belief that power corrupts human beings.
He distrusted anyone who could claim power over anyone else, and
believed that rulers should have to prove their right to lead other
people.
Milton was an activist in his middle years, fighting
for human rights and against the rule of England’s leaders, whom
he believed were inept. Knowing he was not a fighter, he demonstrated
his activism by writing lengthy, rhetorical pamphlets that thoroughly
and rigorously argue for his point of view. Although he championed
liberty and fought against authority throughout his career, in theory
he believed in a strict social and political hierarchy in which
people would obey their leaders and leaders serve their people.
He believed that leaders should be leaders because they are better
and more fit to rule than their subjects. But despite these rigid
views of authority, Milton believed that the social hierarchy that
actually existed in his day was extremely corrupt, and he directly
challenged the rule of Charles I, the king of England during much
of Milton’s lifetime. Milton argued that Charles was not, in fact,
fit to lead his subjects because he did not possess superior faculties
or virtues.
Religion
Milton took public stances on a great number of issues,
but most important to the reading of Paradise Lost are
his positions on religion. In Milton’s time, the Anglican Church,
or Church of England, had split into the high Anglican, moderate
Anglican, and Puritan or Presbyterian sects. Milton was a Presbyterian.
This denomination called for the abolishment of bishops, an office
that exists as part of the Catholic and Anglican churches. Milton,
however, gradually took his views further, ultimately calling for
the removal of all priests, whom he referred to as “hirelings.”
Milton despised the corruption he saw in the Catholic Church, repeatedly
attacking it both in his poetry and prose. In “Lycidas,” he likens
Catholics to hungry wolves leaping into a sheep’s pen, an image
similar to his depiction of Satan leaping over the wall of Paradise
in Paradise Lost, Book IV. He saw few problems
with the division of Protestants into more and smaller denominations.
Instead, he thought that the fragmentation of churches was a sign
of healthy self-examination, and believed that each individual Christian
should be his own church, without any establishment to encumber
him. These beliefs, expressed in a great number of pamphlets, prompted
his break with the Presbyterians before 1650.
From that point on, Milton advocated the complete abolishment of
all church establishments, and kept his own private religion, close
to the Calvinism practiced by Presbyterians but differing in some
ways. Milton’s highly individual view of Christianity makes Paradise
Lost simultaneously personal and universal.
In his later years, Milton came to view all organized
Christian churches, whether Anglican, Catholic or Presbyterian,
as an obstacle to true faith. He felt that the individual and his
conscience (or “right reason”) was a much more powerful tool in
interpreting the Word of God than the example set by a church. Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton expresses the idea that Adam and Eve’s fall
from grace was actually fortunate, because it gives individual human beings
the opportunity to redeem themselves by true repentance and faith.
The importance of remaining strong in one’s personal religious convictions,
particularly in the face of widespread condemnation, is a major
theme in the later Books of Paradise Lost, as Michael shows
Adam the vision of Enoch and Noah, two followers of God who risk
death to stand up for him.
Paradise Lost also presents a number
of Protestant Christian positions: the union of the Old and New
Testaments, the unworthiness of mankind, and the importance of Christ’s
love in man’s salvation. Nonetheless, the poem does not present
a unified, cohesive theory of Christian theology, nor does it attempt
to identify disbelievers, redefine Christianity, or replace the
Bible. Instead, Milton’s epic stands as a remarkable presentation
of biblical stories meant to engage Christian readers and help them
to be better Christians.
Women and Marriage
Much of Milton’s social commentary in Paradise
Lost focuses on the proper role of women. In Book IV he
makes clear that he does not think men and women are equals, alluding
to biblical passages that identify man as the master of woman. Although
Milton viewed women as inferior to men, believing that wives should
be subservient to their husbands, he did not see himself as a woman-hater.
In Paradise Lost, he distances himself from the
misogyny popular in his time—the belief that women are utterly inferior
to men, essentially evil, and generally to be avoided. Milton’s
character Adam voices this harsh view of womankind, but only after
the fall, as an expression of anger and frustration. Put simply,
Milton’s early views in Paradise Lost may
be misogynistic by today’s standards, but he nevertheless presents
Eve’s wifely role as an important one, as Adam and Eve help one
another to become better and more complete individuals.
Milton’s views on marriage are mainstream today, but
they were viewed as shocking and heretical in his own time. Milton
was a pioneer for the right of divorce in an age when divorce was
prohibited by nearly all denominations. In fact, the only grounds
for a lawful divorce in Milton’s time was usually sexual incompatibility
due to unlawful relations with other parties. But in his Doctrine
of Discipline and Divorce, Milton expresses his belief
that any sort of incompatibility—sexual, mental, or otherwise—is
justified grounds for a divorce. In the same essay, he argues that
the main purpose of marriage is not necessarily procreation, as
most people thought at that time, but to bring two people together
in completion. He felt that conversation and mental companionship
were supremely important in a marriage, and admits that his first
marriage might have failed due to a lack in this regard. He also
argued that the partners in a marriage must complement each other.
His portrayal of Adam and Eve after the fall is a vivid example
of his belief that two people can complement each other, smoothing
out one anothers’ faults and enhancing each others’ strengths.
The Epic
At the early age of sixteen, Milton already aspired to
write the great English epic. As he read the classical epics in
school—Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad and
Virgil’s Aeneid—he began to fantasize about bringing
such artistic brilliance to the English language.
Milton considered many topics for his epic. Early on,
he thought that the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the
Round Table was a noble topic. Then, as he grew slightly older,
he hoped to write an epic about Oliver Cromwell, who took control
of England in 1653 after helping to dethrone
and execute King Charles. Judging from these two topics, it is clear
that Milton wanted to write his epic on a distinctly British topic
that would inspire nationalist pride in his countrymen. Such a topic
would also mimic Homer’s and Virgil’s nationalist epics of strong,
virtuous warriors and noble battles. However, Milton abandoned both
of these ideas, and for a time gave up the notion of writing an
epic at all.
But in the mid-1650s, Milton returned
to an idea he had previously had for a verse play: the story of
Adam and Eve. He concluded that the story might fail as a drama
but succeed as an epic. In 1656 the blind
Milton began to recite verse each morning to one of his two daughters,
who wrote his poem down for him. Milton continued to dictate Paradise
Lost for several years, finishing in 1667 when
it was first published in ten books. Milton soon returned to revise
his epic, redividing it into twelve books (as the classical epics were
divided), and publishing it in its authoritative second edition form
in 1671.
Later in 1671 he published his
final work: Paradise Regained, the sequel to his
great epic. Due to his strong religious beliefs, Milton thought
that this work surpassed Paradise Lost in both
its art and its message, though most readers today would disagree.
