John Milton, English Poet
by Folger Shakespeare Library
Title
John Milton, English Poet
Artist
Folger Shakespeare Library
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
John Milton (December 9, 1608 - November 8, 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica (1644) - written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship - is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press. Milton wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). His use of blank verse, in addition to his stylistic innovations (such as grandiloquence of voice and vision, peculiar diction and phraseology) influenced later poets. His poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. Once Paradise Lost was published, Milton's stature as epic poet was immediately recognized. He cast a formidable shadow over English poetry in the 18th and 19th centuries. Milton was a proponent of monism or animist materialism, the notion that a single material substance which is "animate, self-active, and free" composes everything in the universe from stones and trees and bodies to minds, souls, angels, and God. He died of kidney failure in 1674 at the age of 65.
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February 7th, 2017
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