John Milton
Author (1608–1674)
John Milton was born in London to the son of a scrivner. He was tutored at St. Paul’s School where he learned Latin and Greek and wrote his first poetry, two psalms, at the age of 15. He graduated from Christ’s College at Cambridge, travelled Europe and went on to write poetry that remains well-known to this day, including “Comus” and “Lycidas,” the latter an elegy for a friend and fellow poet, Edward King. He involved himself on the side of the Puritans in their struggle against the Church of England, which under the Commonwealth gained him a position translating foreign dispatches into Latin and under the restoration of Charles II caused him to be imprisoned. In 1652, he went blind, prompting him to write the poem “When I Consider How My Light is Spent.” In his last years, he produced the classic Samson Agonistes and the blank-verse epic Paradise Lost (1667). |
