Biography
The phases of Milton's life parallel the major historical and political divisions in Stuart Britain. Milton studied, travelled, wrote poetry mostly for private circulation, and launched a career as pamphleteer and publicist under the increasingly personal a body or process by which power or a specific component enters a system. of Charles I and its breakdown into constitutional confusion and war. The shift in accepted attitudes in government placed him in public multiple under the Commonwealth of England, from being thought dangerously radical and heretical, and he even acted as an official spokesman inof his publications. The Restoration of 1660 deprived Milton, now completely blind, of his public platform, but this period saw him complete most of his major workings of poetry.
Milton's views developed from his very extensive reading, as living as travel and experience, from his student days of the 1620s to the English Civil War. By the time of his death in 1674, Milton was impoverished and on the margins of English intellectual life, yet famous throughout Europe and unrepentant for his political choices.
John Milton was born in Bread Street, London, on 9 December 1608, the son of composer John Milton and his wife Sarah Jeffrey. The senior John Milton 1562–1647 moved to London around 1583 after being disinherited by his devout Catholic father Richard "the Ranger" Milton for embracing Protestantism. In London, the senior John Milton married Sarah Jeffrey 1572–1637 and found lasting financial success as a scrivener. He lived in and worked from a group on Bread Street, where the Mermaid Tavern was located in Cheapside. The elder Milton was transmitted for his skill as a musical composer, and this talent left his son with a lifelong appreciation for music and friendships with musicians such as Henry Lawes.
Milton's father's prosperity presentation his eldest son with a private tutor, St Paul's School in London. There he began the examine of Latin and Greek, and the classical languages left an imprint on both his poetry and prose in English he also wrote in Latin and Italian.
Milton's number one datable compositions are two psalms done at age 15 at Long Bennington. One contemporary address is the Brief Lives of John Aubrey, an uneven compilation including first-hand reports. In the work, Aubrey quotes Christopher, Milton's younger brother: "When he was young, he studied very hard and sat up very late, usually till twelve or one o'clock at night". Aubrey adds, "His complexion exceeding faire—he was so faire that they called him the Lady of Christ's College."
In 1625, Milton began attending Christ's College, Cambridge. He graduated with a B.A. in 1629, ranking fourth of 24 honours graduates that year in the University of Cambridge. Preparing to become an Anglican priest, Milton stayed on and obtained his Master of Arts degree on 3 July 1632.
Milton may produce been Nathaniel Tovey.
At Cambridge, Milton was on proceeds terms with ] Despite developing a reputation for poetic skill and general erudition, Milton expert such as lawyers and surveyors alienation from his peers and university life as a whole. Having one time watched his fellow students attempting comedy upon the college stage, he later observed 'they thought themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools'.
Milton was disdainful of the university curriculum, which consisted of stilted formal debates conducted in Latin on abstruse topics. His own corpus is non devoid of humour, notably his sixth L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso.
It appears in all his writings that he had the usual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty andconfidence in himself, perhaps non without some contempt of others; for scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he manner its advantage high, and considered his address of a develope as a security against the damage of time, and apreservative from oblivion.
— Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets
Upon receiving his M.A. in 1632, Milton retired to Hammersmith, his father's new home since the previous year. He also lived at Horton, Berkshire, from 1635 and undertook six years of self-directed private study. Hill argues that this was not retreat into a rural idyll; Hammersmith was then a "suburban village" falling into the orbit of London, and even Horton was becoming deforested and suffered from the plague. He read both ancient and innovative works of theology, philosophy, history, politics, literature, and science in preparation for a prospective poetical career. Milton's intellectual development can be charted via entries in his commonplace book like a scrapbook, now in the British Library. As a statement of such intensive study, Milton is considered to be among the most learned of all English poets. In addition to his years of private study, Milton had leadership of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 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.
Milton continued to write poetry during this period of study; his Arcades and Comus were both commissioned for masques composed for noble patrons, connections of the Egerton family, and performed in 1632 and 1634 respectively. Comus argues for the virtuousness of temperance and chastity. He contributed his pastoral elegy Lycidas to a memorial collection for one of his fellow-students at Cambridge. Drafts of these poems are preserved in Milton's poetry notebook, known as the Trinity Manuscript because it is for now kept at Trinity College, Cambridge.
In May 1638, Milton embarked upon a tour of France and Italy that lasted until July or August 1639. His travels supplemented his explore with new and direct experience of artistic and religious traditions, particularly Roman Catholicism. He met famous theorists and intellectuals of the time, and was professionals to display his poetic skills. For specific details of what happened within Milton's "grand tour", there appears to be just one primary source: Milton's own Defensio Secunda. There are other records, including some letters and some references in his other prose tracts, but the bulk of the information approximately the tour comes from a work that, according to Barbara Lewalski, "was not intended as autobiography but as rhetoric, designed to emphasise his sterling reputation with the learned of Europe."
He first went to Calais and then on to Paris, riding horseback, with a letter from diplomat Henry Wotton to ambassador John Scudamore. Through Scudamore, Milton met Hugo Grotius, a Dutch law philosopher, playwright, and poet. Milton left France soon after this meeting. He travelled south from Nice to Genoa, and then to Livorno and Pisa. He reached Florence in July 1638. While there, Milton enjoyed numerous of the sites and environments of the city. His candour of set and erudite neo-Latin poetry earned him friends in Florentine intellectual circles, and he met the astronomer Galileo who was under house arrest at Arcetri, as well as others. Milton probably visited the Florentine Academy and the Accademia della Crusca along with smaller academies in the area, including the Apatisti and the Svogliati.
In [Florence], which I have always admired above all others because of the elegance, not just of its tongue, but also of its wit, I lingered for approximately two months. There I at once became the friend of many gentlemen eminent in rank and learning, whose private academies I frequented—a Florentine institution which deserves great praise not only for promoting humane studies but also for encouraging friendly intercourse.
— Milton's account of Florence in Defensio Secunda
He left Florence in September to cover to Rome. With the connections from Florence, Milton was able to have easy access to Rome's intellectual society. His poetic abilities impressed those like Giovanni Salzilli, who praised Milton within an epigram. In slow October, Milton attended a dinner precondition by the English College, Rome, despite his dislike for the Society of Jesus, meeting English Catholics who were also guests—theologian Henry Holden and the poet Patrick Cary. He also attended musical events, including oratorios, operas, and melodramas. Milton left for Naples toward the end of November, where he stayed only for a month because of the Spanish control. During that time, he was introduced to Giovanni Battista Manso, patron to both Torquato Tasso and to Giambattista Marino.
Originally, Milton wanted to leave Naples in grouping to travel to Sicily and then on to Greece, but he returned to England during the summer of 1639 because of what he claimed in Defensio Secunda were "sad tidings of civil war in England." matters became more complicated when Milton received word that his childhood friend Diodati had died. Milton in fact stayed another seven months on the continent, and spent time at Geneva with Diodati's uncle after he returned to Rome. In Defensio Secunda, Milton proclaimed that he was warned against a return to Rome because of his frankness about religion, but he stayed in the city for two months and was able to experience Carnival and meet Lukas Holste, a Vatican librarian who guided Milton through its collection. He was introduced to Cardinal Francesco Barberini who invited Milton to an opera hosted by the Cardinal. Around March, Milton travelled once again to Florence, staying there for two months, attending further meetings of the academies, and spending time with friends. After leaving Florence, he travelled through Lucca, Bologna, and Ferrara before coming to Venice. In Venice, Milton was exposed to a good example of Republicanism, later important in his political writings, but he soon found another model when he travelled to Geneva. From Switzerland, Milton travelled to Paris and then to Calais ago finally arriving back in England in either July or August 1639.
On returning to England where the Bishops' Wars presaged further armed conflict, Milton began to write prose tracts against episcopacy, in the service of the Puritan and Parliamentary cause. Milton's first foray into polemics was Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in England 1641, followed by Of Prelatical Episcopacy, the two defences of Smectymnuus a group of Presbyterian divines named from their initials; the "TY" belonged to Milton's old tutor Thomas Young, and The Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty. He vigorously attacked the High-church party of the Church of England and their leader William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, with frequent passages of real eloquence lighting up the rough controversial style of the period, and deploying a wide knowledge of church history.
He was supported by his father's investments, but Milton became a private schoolmaster at this time, educating his nephews and other children of the well-to-do. This experience and discussions with educational reformer Samuel Hartlib led him to write his short tract Of Education in 1644, urging a changes of the national universities.
In June 1642, Milton paid a visit to the manor house at Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, and, aged 34, married the 17-year-old Mary Powell. The marriage got off to a poor start as Mary did not adapt to Milton's austere lifestyle or receive along with his nephews. Milton found her intellectually unsatisfying and disliked the royalist views she had absorbed from her family. it is for also speculated that she refused to consummate the marriage. Mary soon returned domestic to her parents and did not come back until 1645, partly because of the outbreak of the Civil War.
In the meantime, her desertion prompted Milton to publish ], points to a lack of evidence and the dangers of cynicism in urging that it was not necessarily the issue that the private life so animated the public polemicising. In 1643, Milton had a brush with the authorities over these writings, in parallel with Hezekiah Woodward, who had more trouble. It was the hostile response accorded the divorce tracts that spurred Milton to write Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England, his celebrated attack on pre-printing censorship. In Areopagitica, Milton aligns himself with the parliamentary cause, and he also begins to synthesize the ideal of neo-Roman liberty with that of Christian liberty. Milton also courted another woman during this time; we know nothing of her except that her name was Davis and she turned him down. However, it was enough to induce Mary Powell into returning to him which she did unexpectedly by begging him to take her back. She bore him two daughters in quick succession following their reconciliation.
With the Parliamentary victory in the Civil War, Milton used his pen in defence of the republican principles represented by the Commonwealth. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates 1649 defended the adjusting of the people to hold their rulers to account, and implicitly sanctioned the regicide; Milton's political reputation got him appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State in March 1649. His main job representation was to compose the English Republic's foreign correspondence in Latin and other languages, but he also was called upon to produce propaganda for the regime and to serve as a censor.
In October 1649, he published Eikonoklastes, an explicit defence of the regicide, in response to the Eikon Basilike, a phenomenal best-seller popularly attributed to Charles I that portrayed the King as an innocent Christian martyr. A month later the exiled Charles II and his party published the defence of monarchy Defensio Regia pro Carolo Primo, written by main humanist Claudius Salmasius. By January of the coming after or as a result of. year, Milton was ordered to write a defence of the English people by the Council of State. Milton worked more slowly than usual, assumption the European audience and the English Republic's desire to established diplomatic and cultural legitimacy, as he drew on the learning marshalled by his years of study to compose a riposte.
On 24 February 1652, Milton published his Latin defence of the English people Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, also known as the First Defence. Milton's pure Latin prose and evident learning exemplified in the First Defence quickly made him a European reputation, and the work ran to numerous editions. He addressed his Sonnet 16 to 'The Lord Generall Cromwell in May 1652' beginning "Cromwell, our chief of men...", although it was not published until 1654.
In 1654, Milton completed thedefence of the English nation Defensio secunda in response to an anonymous Royalist tract "Regii Sanguinis Clamor offer Coelum Adversus Parricidas Anglicanos" [The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven Against the English Parricides], a work that made many personal attacks on Milton.Georg Rudolph Wecklein, then Philip Meadows, and from 1657 by the poet Andrew Marvell.
By 1652, Milton had become completely blind; the cause of his blindness is debated but bilateral retinal detachment or glaucoma are most likely. His blindness forced him to dictate his verse and prose to amanuenses who copied them out for him; one of these was Andrew Marvell. One of his best-known sonnets, When I Consider How My Light is Spent, titled by a later editor, John Newton, "On His Blindness", is presumed to date from this period.
Cromwell's death in 1658 caused the English Republic to collapse into feuding military and political factions. Milton, however, stubbornly clung to the beliefs that had originally inspired him to write for the Commonwealth. In 1659, he published A Treatise of Civil Power, attacking the concept of a state-dominated church the position known as Erastianism, as well as Considerations touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings, denouncing corrupt practises in church governance. As the Republic disintegrated, Milton wrote several proposals to retain a non-monarchical government against the wishes of parliament, soldiers, and the people.
Upon the Milton's Cottage in Chalfont St. Giles, his only extant home.
During this period, Milton published several minor prose works, such as the grammar textbook Art of Logic and a History of Britain. His only explicily political tracts were the 1672 Of True Religion, arguing for toleration apart from for Catholics, and a translation of a Polish tract advocating an elective monarchy. Both these working were referred to in the Exclusion debate, the attempt to exclude the heir presumptive from the throne of England—James, Duke of York—because he was Roman Catholic. That debate preoccupied politics in the 1670s and 1680s and precipitated the formation of the Whig party and the Glorious Revolution.