Literature :: essays research papers

ilton, John (1608-1674), slope poet, whose rich, great(p) verse was a powerful influence on succeeding incline poets, and whose prose was devoted to the defense of civil and religious liberty. Milton is often considered the greatest English poet after Shakespeare.Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608, and enlightened at Saint Pauls School and Christs College, University of Cambridge. He intended to become a clergyman in the Church of England, but growing dissatisfaction with the state of the Anglican clergy together with his own developing poetic interests led him to abandon this purpose. From 1632 to 1638 he lived in his fathers country home in Horton, Buckinghamshire, preparing himself for his poetic career by entering upon an ambitious program of reading the Latin and Greek classics and ecclesiastic and political history. From 1638 to 1639 he toured France and Italy, where he met the leading literary figures of the day. On his reelect to England, he settled in London and began writing a serial of social, religious, and political tracts.In 1642 he married Mary Powell, who left him after a few weeks because of the incompatibility of their temperaments, but was reconciled to him in 1645 she gave redeem to three daughters and a son before her death in 1652. In his writings, Milton supported the parliamentary cause in the civil war surrounded by Parliamentarians and Royalists, and in 1649 he was appointed foreign secretary by the regime of the Commonwealth. He became totally blind about 1652 and thereafter carried on his literary work helped by an assistant with the aid also of the poet Andrew Marvell, he complete his government duties until the restoration of