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.

Studying for a poetic vocation

Famously, and upon graduating from Christ?s College, Cambridge, in 1632 Milton undertook six years of self-directed private study in both the ancient and modern disciplines of theology, philosophy, history, politics, literature and science, in preparation for his prospective poetical career.{{fn|5}} A flavour of the exhaustive range of Milton?s study can be found in a letter he wrote to Charles Diodati where he confessed:

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By continued reading I have brought the affairs of the Greeks to the time when they ceased to be Greeks. I have been occupied for a long time by the obscure history of the Italians under the Longoboards, Franks, and Germans, to the time when liberty was granted them by Rudolph, King of Germany. From there it will be better to read separately about what each state did by its own effort.{{fn|6}}

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As a result of such intensive study, Milton is generally considered to be among the most learned of all English poets, and is sometimes considered to be one of the most erudite men of all time; in addition to his six years of private study, Milton had command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew (including its dialects), 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.{{fn|7}}

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