The youthful purpose to write a great epic poem he had never abandoned. The prevailing view of most of Milton's biog raphers that the long period from his return from Italy to the beginning of active work on "Paradise Lost" were wasted and that he gave his best years to work that a less gifted man might have done is in error. "Paradise Lost" would not be the poem that he made it had it not been for his experience with men and affairs, his saturation with an enormous body of thought, and the con stant planning and ripening of mind that prepared him to write. A part of the poem was probably written during the Protectorate; with the Restoration he carried forward the great project to such purpose that it was complete by 1663, though not published until 1667. Before the publication he had already begun work on "Paradise Regained," which was published in 1671, when "Samson Agonistes," his last important work, also appeared. The three great poetical works vol. VI-Cyc-P are closely linked. "Paradise Lost," like Dante's great poem, sums up an epoch. The sacred dramas of the Middle Ages had dealt with the scheme of salvation, rebellion of Lucifer, the temptation and fall of man, the coming of the Christ who was to make atonement. In the 16th and 17th centuries every country in Europe produced dramas and epics upon the theme. To this theme Milton added a profound philosophy, the fruit of many years of study. He cast his poem on Vergilian lines. He used in it, besides the conventional elements of the story, his knowledge of the classi cal literature and philosophy; it was colored by his experience with life, his idea of the relation between liberty and discipline, and his interest, characteristic of the time, in the relation of man to nature. His purpose, "to justify the ways
of God to Man," is thus seen to be not merely theological; it includes the whole mystery of man's relation to God, to his fellows, and to external nature. The twelve books of which it is composed may thus be studied as the high water mark of Renaissance epic, as a summary of thought and philosophy for centuries, and as the revelation of one of the most powerful personalities the world has pro duced. The blank verse in which it is written, different from Shakespeare's, but not less flexible, the sublimity of the imagination of an action carried on throughout a universe, the characteri zation of titanic personages, the descrip tions, the similes, the lists of charmed names, the loftiness of the style—all com bine to place the poem securely in the small list of the world's immortals, with Homer and Vergil and Dante, and in the very highest rank of poetry in the English tongue.
"Of "Paradise Regained" and "Sam son Agonistes" it must suffice to say that though in widely different ways they illustrate the same transcendent power. The first, an epic in four books, com pletes the theme of "Paradise Lost" by showing how the "Greater Man" is to bring salvation. The second, a tragedy cast in Greek mold, treats the Biblical story in the massive style of Sophocles. After these supreme expressions of his genius Milton did little more. A few revisions, leading to new editions of his minor poems, and a few more prose pieces, notably a "History of Britain," complete the story. He died Nov. 8, 1674, and was buried in St. Giles' Church, Cripplegate.