John Milton

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, most famous for his blank verse epic Paradise Lost. He is also remembered for authoring the brief epic Paradise Regained, the closet drama Samson Agonistes, the monody Lycidas, and Areopagitica, a prose work that condemns pre-publishing censorship.

Legacy

Milton?s literary career cast such a formidable shadow over English poetry in the 18th and 19th centuries that he was often judged favourably against all other English poets, including Shakespeare. We can point to Lucy Hutchinson?s epic poem about the fall of Humanity, Order and Disorder (1679), and John Dryden's The State of Innocence and the Fall of Man: an Opera (1677) as evidence of an immediate cultural influence.

Related Topics:
Shakespeare - John Dryden

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Within twenty one years of publishing Paradise Lost, Milton?s achievement was readily acknowledged;{{fn|1}} John Dryden?s panegyric epigram, attached to the important 1688 edition of the poem,{{fn|*}} hoped to explain to future generations that ?three poets, in three distant ages born,/ Greece, Italy and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; the next in majesty; in both the last. The force of nature could no further go: To make a third she joined the former two.? Yet Milton?s Paradise Lost, as a Christian epic, attained more than just a harmonisation of the Homeric and Virgilian modes of epic poetry; Milton revised and reinvigorated the epic genre in a way that many Christian authors before him had failed to achieve. The angelic warfare in the middle books of Paradise Lost is presented on a grandiose, cosmic scale but instead of a tacit celebration of the martial, nationalist values found in the classical epics of Homer and Virgil, Milton ridicules military endeavour and temporal empires.{{fn|*}}

Related Topics:
Paradise Lost

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A further innovation was the unparalleled scope of Paradise Lost. Not only does Paradise Lost portray God justifying his actions, the poem also depicts the creation of the universe, earth, and humanity; conveys the origin of sin, death, and evil, imagines events in the Kingdom of Heaven, the garden of Eden, and the sacred history of Israel; engages with political ideas of tyranny, liberty and justice, and defends theological positions on predestination, free will, and salvation. As a result, Milton?s Paradise Lost caused something of a paradox: it delivered a renewed cultural emphasis on, and popular appetite for, epic poetry as the highest poetical achievement, but in Barbara Lewalski?s judgement ?exhausted the genre, at least for a time.?{{fn|*}} The slew of eighteenth century imitators, of the Miltonic style of Paradise Lost, that ?advent?rous song,/ that with no middle flight intends to soar/ above the Aonian mount? (I. 13-5), exemplified by Richard Blackmore, pay testament to Milton?s immediate influence. Alexander Pope?s response to the question of what to write in an epic after Paradise Lost is representative of the eighteenth century?s preoccupation with Milton?s poetical achievement. Pope?s initial foray into the epic genre was his celebrated mock-epic The Rape of the Lock (1714), while his later return to the mock-epic genre with his Dunciad, could be construed as evidence of Pope?s unwillingness to compete with to Milton?s epic. However, Pope made his fortune through his best-selling translation (and gentrification) of Homer?s classical epics, and it should also be noted that Pope, perhaps the acknowledged master of the heroic couplet, had intended to write a national epic about Brutus in Miltonic blank verse before he died.{{fn|*}} If any doubt remains about Milton?s unquestioned literary pre-eminence in Eighteenth Century England, an appreciation of Milton?s commercial value seems in order. When Jacob Tonson, the proud owner and sole publisher of John Milton?s and William Shakespeare?s literary estates, was asked which author had been most valuable to him? He answered, without hesitation, ?Milton.?{{fn|*}}

Related Topics:
Paradise Lost - Alexander Pope - Brutus

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Milton?s influence on the literature of the Romantic era was similarly profound.{{fn|7}} In his sonnet London, 1802, Wordsworth was so enamoured of Milton, the republican patriot, that he felt moved to write ?Milton! Thou shouldst be living this hour; / England hath need of thee: she is a fen of stagnant writers? We are selfish men; /oh! raise us up, return to us again? (ll. 1-7). Similarly, further testament of the canonical status of Milton in the Romantic age is apparent from Mary Shelley?s Frankenstein, Shelley?s novel is prefaced by lines taken from Adam in Paradise Lost: ?Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay/ To mould me man? Did I solicit thee/ From darkness to promote me? (10. 743-45). We might also remember William Blake?s illustrations of Milton?s epic poetry, and his illuminated prophetic book entitled Milton, which contains the famous lyric, And did those feet in ancient time.

Related Topics:
Wordsworth - Mary Shelley

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

However, many critics of the Romantic age have acknowledged that Milton?s legacy was not always an artistically liberating one. John Keats found the yoke of Milton?s style debilitating; he exclaimed that ?Miltonic verse cannot be written but in an artful or rather artist?s humour.? Keats felt that Paradise Lost was a ?beautiful and grand curiosity,? but his own unfinished attempt at epic poetry, Hyperion, is said to have suffered from Keat?s failed attempt to cultivate a distinct epic voice.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Victorian age witnessed a continuation of Milton?s influence; George Eliot{{fn|*}} and Thomas Hardy being particularly inspired by Milton?s poetry and biography. By contrast, the twentieth century, due primarily to the critical efforts of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, witnessed a slight reduction in Milton?s stature. However, recent references to Milton in films such as Se7en and Devil's Advocate as well as Phillip Pullman's allusions to Milton?s work, in His Dark Materials Trilogy, has suggested that Milton?s cultural influence may be on the rise once more.

Related Topics:
George Eliot - Thomas Hardy - T.S. Eliot - Ezra Pound - Se7en - Devil's Advocate - Phillip Pullman

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Aside from his importance to literary history, Milton?s career has impacted upon the modern world in other ways. Milton coined many familiar modern words; in Paradise Lost readers were confronted by neologisms like dreary, pandæmonium, acclaim, rebuff, self-esteem, unaided, impassive, enslaved, jubilant, serried, solaced, and satanic. In terms of politics, Milton?s Areopagitica and republican writings were consulted during the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The John Milton Society for the Blind was founded in 1928 by Helen Keller to develop an interdenominational ministry that would bring spiritual guidance and religious literature to deaf and blind persons.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This article includes content derived from the public domain Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1914.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~