John Milton

John Milton (1608 - 1674) is a Poète and a Pamphlétaire English, author of the Paradis lost .

Biography

Youth

The father of John Milton was a puritan notary which wrote the madrigaux ones for the queen Elizabeth I {{Re}}. He went to settle in London around 1583, to have hidden his Protestantism because his/her own father, Richard Milton, a rich person owner of the county of Oxford and devout catholic, had disinherited it. Around 1600, the father of the poet married Sara Jeffrey and the poet was born on December 9th 1608 in Cheapside, with London.

John Milton started to write at the ten years age. Then it began its studies at the school of St Paul to London. At that time, Milton is intended for the ministry for the worship Anglican and for this reason shows itself very assiduous in its studies. It is allowed on February 12th, 1625 with the Christ' S College of Cambridge. This period with Cambridge, of 1625 with 1632, will be rather mitigated for John Milton. It falls into a deep dissension with its director from study William Chappel to be perhaps whipped by this one. Milton is temporarily revoked during one quarter, from January to March 1626. On its return, on April 19th 1626, it will be seen allotting a new director of study which it will keep until the end of his years of university. It obtains its diploma “ cum laude ” on July 3rd 1632. During this period, Milton writes already several poems in Latin and of the letters in prose and gives Hebrew courses to the American theologist Roger Williams in exchange of Dutch course.

Obviously, the experiments of Milton with Cambridge were not very positive and contributed for a good portion at its sights on education. After obtaining his diploma to the college of Christ to Cambridge, John Milton will live during 6 years, of 1632 with 1638 in the house of his parents with Hammersmith then with Horton in a studious retirement. He looks further into for this period his knowledge in Greek and Latin but also in Hebrew, in French in Spanish, Italian and old English and in modern and old disciplines like theology, philosophy, the history, the policy, the letters, science, to prepare his future career of poet. He acquires a formidable scholarship thus. He writes several important works in prose as in poetry and publishes its first poem in 1632. It is during this period that Milton gradually will give up its project to become priest and affirm his vocation of poet. Because of such a intellectual expenditure, Milton is regarded as one of the more scholars of the English poets.

After the death of his/her mother in April 1637, Milton considers, as it is the use then in the young men of good families, to leave on a journey on the continent to France and Italy then to go back to London to continue to study and to exempt private courses. It embarks for France with the beginning of the year 1638, passes by Paris and Nice then arrives in Italy where it visits many cities, Gènes, Pisa, Florence, His, Rome, Naples, Venice… It meets many famous and influential people of its time of which the cardinal Francesco Barberini but also the astronomer Galileo whose judgment reinforces the attachment of Milton to the religious liberties of its country. Milton, informed of the first steps of the civil war which thunders in Great Britain, decides to return while passing initially by Geneva.

Milton lampoonist

On its return, Milton becomes the private professor of its nephews but also of several children of the nobility. Besides he writes a treaty on education in 1644. Parallel to this activity, Milton, immersed in the religious controversy, will write five lampoons against the hierarchy of the Church which make known it and pleasing on him the anger of the defenders of the clergy.

In May or in June 1642, John Milton Marie with Mary Powell whose father was debtor of John Milton senior. The difference of old (16 and 33 years), the severe and introverted character of Milton, the royalist opinions of the Powell family are as many factors which can explain the escape of Mary after only one month of marriage. This one benefits indeed from a visit in his/her parents, not to return more in the marital home. Milton then will write " The Doctrines and Discipline off Divorce" where it defends the legalization and the morality of the divorce what attracts on him the lightnings of many its contemporaries (the English law on the marriage, unchanged or almost since the catholic Middle Ages, did not accept the divorce that on a basis of sterility). Vis-a-vis virulence of its detractors and against the censure which applies to its lampoons favorable to the divorce, he writes Areopagitica: With speech off Mr. John Milton for the liberty off unlicensed printing to the Parliament off England which attacks a law earlier authorizing the instituted censure one year. Mary and John will reconcile themselves in 1645, the Powell family will move in even at the couple and it will give him four children before his death in 1652: Anne, Mary, John (death at the 15 month age), and Deborah. In spite of their separation the life of the couple seems to have been happy. It is at that time also that at John the first signs of an ocular weakness due undoubtedly to the glaucome appear which will return it gradually blind man.

The Commonwealth

The Parliamentary victory and the judgment of the king Charles Ier with the end of the year 1648 and the beginning of the year 1649 give to Milton the hope to see emerging more freedom. It gives its support for a parliamentary mode and argues in discredit of the king in The Tenure off Kings and Magistrates . This work in prose does not argue openly in favor of the regicide but supports it implicitly. Its political reputation and its scholarship introduce it near the Parliament which names it, on March 15th 1649, Secretary of State to the foreign languages. It is in charge of the correspondence with the foreign powers and of the relation of the foreign communications at the Parliament and later it will also act as critic. An important station insofar as the young republic makes a point of being made recognize diplomatically in Europe. Milton is also brought to write works of propaganda in favor of the mode. The first writing on order is Eikonoklastes in 1649 which answered a work in favor of the king " Eikon Basilike" whose growing popularity worried the Council of State. Another order, Pro Rabble Anglicano Defensio , written in 1651, was written in answer to the work written by Claude Saumaise and published by the royal family in exile Defensio regia pro carolo I . Its works start many reactions in Europe and the defenders of the Stuart do not hesitate to affirm only the blindness which touches Milton is a divine punishment due to its standpoint and its life dissolue. Because of its blindness, Milton gradually reduces its workload and the importance of its station decreases consequently. To help it in its work it profits from now on assistants of which the young poet Andrew Marvell. John Milton remains in station until the end of the year 1659, after the death of Oliver Cromwell and the abdication of his son Richard. Vis-a-vis the degradation of the political situation and to the emergence of a tendency to the return to monarchy, John Milton will write several works to defend the cause of freedom and to denounce the dangers of a religious State.

Restoration

With the Restauration, in spite of the auto-da-fe that its books undergo, Milton is initially not worried personally. It is however arrested in October 1660 and is imprisoned with the Tour of London until December 15th. Its release is done thanks to the intervention of his/her friends like Andrew Marvell, then member of the Parliament.

Its second wife, Katherine Woodcock, married in 1656, and their daughter die both with the beginning of the year 1658. He then saw only with the three girls of its first marriage until February 1663 where he Marie with Elisabeth Minshull. In 1662, it loses all its goods, its notary having gone bankrupt. Milton will live its last years in a certain destitution in a form of retirement dedicated being studied, the devotion and the drafting of its most famous works. John Milton who suffers from several recurring diseases however receives still the visit of several foreign dignitaries, of friends and of knowledge but these visits are spaced more and more. It is made make the reading and dictates its works with its assistants including its two girl Mary and Deborah. Its chief of work, the poem epic Paradise Lost is published in 1667 but is not immediately success; it will be necessary to await 1688, ten year after the death of Milton, so that its poem is largely recognized. It also publishes in 1670, its History off Britain then in 1671 Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes , other major poetic works. In 1674, the second edition of Paradise Lost in 12 pounds is published and John Milton dies on November 8th.

Work, influences and style

Milton transcribed its two principal works by dictating them because of its blindness. This infirmity forced it to memorize vast sides of its poems to recite them, which is all the more remarkable if one considers which organization such a work requires, even on paper. Nevertheless, Milton succeeds in doing without these supports.

In spite of the extent of the intellectual scholarship of Milton, crucial influences on its work can be in the following books of the Bible: genesis, the book of Job, psalms and also poets profane like Homère, Virgile or Lucain. The favorite historian of Milton was Salluste. Nevertheless, even if the traditional culture of Milton is dominating, one finds also traces of his contemporaries Spenser, Sidney, Donne, and Shakespeare. Commentators suggested that it aimed at reinforcing the stylistic devices of poets knights such as John Wilmot, count de Rochester and Sir John Suckling in the conversations of Adam and Eve. The literary career of Milton eclipsed all the poetry of the 18th century and 19th centuries, so that one often preferred it with all the English poets, including Shakespeare. One can quote the poem epic of Lucy Hutchinson on the fall of humanity “Order and disorder” and the opera of John Dryden “the state of innocence and the fall of the man like examples of his immediate influence in the cultural field”.

The unequalled project of the lost Paradise, its masterpiece, makes the portrait of God justifying his acts. The poem depicts also the creation of the universe, the ground, and humanity; it expresses the origin of the sin, death, and the Evil, imagines events in the kingdom of heaven, the garden of Eden and the sacred History of Israel; confronts themselves with the political ideas of Tyranny, freedom and justice, and defends its theological ideas on predestination, the free will and safety. The influence of Milton on the romanticism was very deep.

John Keats found the yoke of the style of Milton too difficult to carry. He said that “the worms of Milton could be written only in one artistic mood or rather of artist”. Keats found that the lost Paradise was beautiful and imposing curiosity but its fallen through attempt at a epic poetry Hyperion suffers, says one, of his failure to cultivate a clean epic ton. The time victorienne testifies to the persistence of its influence. George Eliot and Thomas Hardy was inspired particularly by its poetry and its life. On the other hand, last century, because of the critical efforts T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, saw regressing the dimension of Milton. In addition to its importance on the literary history, the career of Milton had an impact on the modern world in other fields. Like Rabelais, Milton forged many words: in the Paradise lost the readers were confronted with neologisms like dreary , pandæmonium , acclaim , rebuff , coil-esteem , unaided , impassive , enslaved , jubilant , serried , solaced , and satanic . In policy, the republican writings of Milton Areopagitica were consulted during the establishment of the constitution of the United States of America.

Others

the company John Milton for the blind men was founded in 1928 by Helen Keller to develop a interreligieux service which brings spiritual councils and the religious literature to the deaf persons and to the blind men.

an edition of 1668 of the lost Paradise, given to be that of Milton in person is deposited in the files of the university of Western Ontario.

the character of the film the Devil's advocate , played by Al Pacino and being the Devil bears the name of John Milton.

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