MILTON, JOHN, an English poet, born on Dec. 9, 1608, in London. His father, a distinguished musician, made a comfortable living from his profession of scrivener, and was wise enough to recognize the genius of his son and to give him a most careful education. Milton was sent to St. Paul's School in 1620, where he became acquainted with the work of Chaucer, Spenser, and other English poets as well as with the great names of classical antiquity. Both school and home life, therefore, stimu lated his instinct for poetry, music, and philosophy, all master passions of his life. In 1625 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, securing the degree of B. A. in 1629 and of M. A. in 1632. He planned at first to go into the Church, but during the period of five years of quiet study at Horton, his father's rural place, he de termined instead to devote himself to literature and learning. In this period he covered the whole field of classical literature, Italian literature, philosophy, and English writers. Meantime he was producing a small but exquisite body of original verse. He had already, as a uni versity student, written a hymn, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (1629), which blended pagan and Christian ele ments in its perception of the beauty of the old religious faiths put to flight by the coming of Christ and anticipated the theme of "Paradise Lost." During the Horton period he wrote "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso" (1634), studies in contrasted moods, representing what were to him the two sides of a well-propor tioned life. Less elaborate than Spenser's first work, the "Shepheards Calender," these two poems were not less definitely the prologue to a new poetic achievement. This impression was deepened by other Horton work, notably "Comus" (1634), a pastoral masque showing indebtedness to Spenser and subtly promising an end of the court party under the rising tide of Puritanism; and "Lycidas" (1637), ostensibly a pastoral dirge in memory of a Cambridge acquaintance, but really prophecy once more of coming change. All these poems are learned in poetic tradition, but the learning is concealed by the infinite variety of their melodies, by the assured individuality of their thought, and by their promise of greater things to come.
In 1638 Milton went to Italy. Here he met men of letters and learning, among them probably the aged Galileo. He wrote little—a few Italian sonnets, together with some further examples of his skill in Latin verse (he had written six Latin elegies while a Cambridge student). This series of Latin poems he brought to an end, soon after his return to England, in a pastoral dirge in memory of his friend Diodati ("Epitaphium Damonis), a marvelously beautiful poem significant also for the indications it gives of his plan for writing a great epic, something that the world would "not willingly let die."
The Italian journey was cut short by the increasing tension in English affairs. He afterward remarked, "I thought it base to be travelling for amusement abroad, while my fellow citizens were fighting for liberty at home." The re mark is deeply signficant of his charac ter, which was marked by intense patriotism and an equally intense love of liberty. In the twenty years next following he wrote no poetry except a few sonnets. His time was divided be tween his duties as Latin Secretary under Cromwell, which involved not only carry ing on the government correspondence with European powers but also the various defenses of the Commonwealth; and a series of prose works in which he set forth his political and ethical philosophy. Of the first of these oc cupations there is no space here to treat. His more significant prose work was ushered in by "Of Reformation in Eng land" (1641), a treatise on government of the Church, and was followed by "Reason of Church Government" (1642), which has additional value because of autobiographical passages. His first marriage, in 1643, was unhappy. This partly, though not wholly, accounts for the treatise on Divorce (1643). He was interested in humanist conceptions of education, and his tractate "Of Edu cation" (1644) is an eloquent and in spiring treatment of the subject. In the same year appeared his finest prose work, "Areopagitica," a plea for freedom of thought marked by eloquence, high phil osophical purpose, and the passion for liberty that is a keynote of his life. In this work he bore witness to the influence of Spenser upon him, and Spenser's adaptation of Plato and Aristotle, here summarized by Milton, supplied much of the philosophy that is blended with Christian dogma in "Paradise Lost." In 1645 he published the first collected edition of his poems. Literary and phil osophical interests of this kind, however, were carried on with difficulty in the face of the increasing demands of the Puritan party on his time. In 1645 he became Latin Secretary and in the next few years published eleven pamphlets, mainly controversial, and sacrificed his sight to the Puritan cause. The sincerity of his devotion is marked not only by the continuance of this work Alen it became certain that blindness would result, but also by his publication in 1660, when the cause was lost, of his tract on "A Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Com monwealth," a book that brought him into peril of his life.