John Milton

John Milton (1608–1674) was born on 9 December 1608 in Cheapside, London, the son of a prosperous scrivener (a combination of notary and moneylender) whose family had been Catholic gentry. His father, also named John, was a cultivated man and a gifted amateur composer whose musical interests shaped his son’s ear for the rhythms of verse. Milton was, from childhood, destined for great things and knew it: he regarded himself as a poet of epic ambition before he had written a line of epic poetry, and his entire career can be read as preparation for the composition of Paradise Lost.

Life and Career

Milton was educated at St Paul’s School and Christ’s College, Cambridge (1625–1632), where he earned the nickname “the Lady of Christ’s” — partly for his fine features, partly for his moral fastidiousness, and partly for his classmates’ irritation with his superiority. After Cambridge he spent six years at his father’s estate at Horton, Buckinghamshire, in a programme of self-directed reading so ambitious that it encompassed the whole of ancient and modern learning. The Horton period produced some of his finest shorter poems: “L’Allegro,” “Il Penseroso,” Comus (1634, a masque), and Lycidas (1637), the greatest pastoral elegy in English.

In 1638–1639 Milton undertook an Italian grand tour, during which he visited Galileo — then under house arrest by the Inquisition — a meeting he later recalled in Areopagitica. He returned to England on the eve of the Civil War and for the next twenty years devoted himself primarily to prose: pamphlets on divorce, education, church government, and, most famously, Areopagitica (1644), the great defence of freedom of the press.

Milton served as Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State under Oliver Cromwell — effectively the regime’s chief propagandist and Latin correspondent. He went completely blind in 1652 (probably from glaucoma) but continued to work, dictating his prose and, eventually, his poetry to amanuenses, including his daughters. At the Restoration in 1660 he was arrested, briefly imprisoned, and fined, but escaped execution through the intercession of Andrew Marvell, his former assistant and fellow poet.

It was in blindness, political defeat, and something close to poverty that Milton composed his masterpiece. Paradise Lost was dictated between 1658 and 1663, published in ten books in 1667 by Samuel Simmons, and revised into twelve books for the second edition of 1674. He received £10 for the copyright — one of the most famous bad deals in literary history. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were published together in 1671. Milton died on 8 November 1674, probably of gout.

Major Works and Themes

Paradise Lost is the greatest long poem in the English language — an epic in blank verse telling the story of Satan’s rebellion against God, the Fall of Man, and the expulsion from Eden. Its theological ambition is enormous: Milton set out to “justify the ways of God to men,” and the result is a poem of philosophical and dramatic complexity that has generated more commentary than any English poem except Shakespeare’s plays.

The poem’s most controversial achievement is its portrayal of Satan, who in the early books — rallying his defeated legions in Hell, soliloquising on the rim of the abyss — is given poetry of such rhetorical power and psychological depth that generations of readers have found him the most compelling figure in the poem. Blake’s famous remark that Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it” inaugurated two centuries of debate about Milton’s sympathies.

Areopagitica (1644) is Milton’s prose masterpiece: a speech (never delivered) to Parliament arguing against pre-publication censorship. Its defence of free inquiry — “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties” — is the foundation of the liberal tradition of free expression.

Samson Agonistes (1671), a dramatic poem modelled on Greek tragedy, tells the story of Samson’s captivity among the Philistines and his final act of destruction. It is Milton’s most personal late work, written in blindness about a blind hero.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Milton’s stature has never been in serious doubt. Dryden called Paradise Lost “one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced.” Johnson, who disapproved of Milton’s politics, acknowledged his genius. The Romantics — Blake, Shelley, Keats — defined their ambitions in relation to him. In the twentieth century, T.S. Eliot’s hostility to Milton’s influence (“Milton II,” 1947) provoked a critical debate that ultimately confirmed Milton’s centrality.

His influence on English poetry is incalculable: the blank verse of Paradise Lost shaped Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, and Stevens. His political prose influenced the American Founders. He is, after Shakespeare, the most important writer in the English language.

Key Works

• Comus (1637)
• Lycidas (1637)
• Areopagitica (1644)
• Paradise Lost (1667; revised 1674)
• Paradise Regained (1671)
• Samson Agonistes (1671)

Collecting Milton

Milton is one of the supreme collecting authors in English literature, with Paradise Lost occupying a place alongside the Shakespeare First Folio and the Gutenberg Bible as one of the most important books in the language.

Paradise Lost (1667, Samuel Simmons, London) was published in a quarto edition of approximately 1,300 copies. There are multiple issues and states of the first edition, identified by variations in the title page and preliminary pages. The first issue has a title page dated 1667 without the author’s name (it was added in later issues). The text exists in several states with corrected and uncorrected pages. Complete copies are rare; prices at auction have ranged from $50,000 to over $400,000 depending on issue, state, binding, and condition. The second edition (1674), revised by Milton into twelve books with a new arrangement and additional material, is an important secondary target at $10,000–$40,000.

Comus (1637), Milton’s first separately published work, printed by Augustine Matthews for Humphrey Robinson, is a major rarity. Copies in contemporary binding bring $20,000–$80,000. Lycidas first appeared in Justa Edouardo King Naufrago (1638), a memorial volume for Edward King; the book is collected primarily for Milton’s contribution. Copies bring $10,000–$30,000.

Areopagitica (1644) is collected both as a literary and a political document. Copies bring $15,000–$60,000 depending on condition.

Milton manuscripts are almost entirely institutional — the major collection is at Trinity College, Cambridge. Letters and documents bearing his signature surface extremely rarely. His blindness means that later documents were written by amanuenses with Milton’s signature added; authentication requires expertise in seventeenth-century hands.