He grew up under the shadow of William Shakespeare. He sipped on the residue offered by muse from a very young age to serve it in the best possible way later on : by creating monumental literary legends like Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. John Milton, one of the leading poets of English language, was a noted historian, scholar and a pamphleteer. His services and contribution as a civil servant for the Parliamentarians and the Puritan (Protestant) Commonwealth is worth a mention.
His influence emerging from his works has played an important part in the history of English literature and culture. Paradise Lost is his greatest epic poem in English language. His prose work is also significant, as it’s a meticulous interpretation of the Puritan revolution.
His rhetoric prose and the eloquent poetry had a significant influence on the 18th century verse and still continues to leave an indelible impact on the readers across the centuries.
Birth
John Milton was born to Sara and John Milton Sr at Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, London on December 9,1608. He was baptized into the Protestant faith of the Church of England. John’s father was a scrivener and professional composer. Milton Sr operated his business from home, which involved public notary work, real estate, and loans along with secretarial tasks. He was financially well off. Milton Sr as a composer was acquainted with some of the leading musicians of those days. John had five other siblings of which one died unbaptized.
Education
John started his early education through private tuition at home. Notable among the tutors was Thomas Young. Young was a friend, philosopher and guide to him. John once wrote in a letter to Young explaining to him, why he was not pursuing ministry and was contemplating a poetic career. The poem, Of reformation is dedicated to Young. John enjoyed learning Latin as it opened up vast avenues of knowledge and literary and linguistic riches before his eyes, and his mind would race to an imagery world. When John turned 11, Young got teaching engagement in Hamburg and left London immediately.
John then joined Alexander Gill’s St Paul’s school. From an early age he was an avid reader, any passerby of Bread Street could see the flickering candles till late night in one of the upper story rooms. The maids who were compelled to sit late with him while he was reading, warned him of the ill-effect of too much reading. Proving them true, studious habits of John, which kept him awake, reading for long hours at a stretch, resulted in poor eyesight in his later years.
Friends For Life
John, in his childhood read The Faerie Queen. He called Spenser, the author, "Our sage and serious Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." Spenser’s preoccupations – Platonic idealism, classical mythology, medieval legend, militant Protestantism dressed in the most Italianate poetic forms – occupied Milton’s thoughts while he was still a boy at St Paul’s. There, he struck friendship with one Charles Diodati, son of a well-known London doctor. John cherished the friendship throughout his life. It is believed that he learnt Italian under the influence of Charles. They also encouraged each other to write verses. The untimely demise of Charles Diodati left a void in John's heart.
At Cambridge
For John, the life-pattern was almost set. He was to follow the pattern that most of the intelligent, knowledgeable and sincere youths of his time were doing. He was to pursue a career in church. While Diodati was enrolled at Oxford, John was on his way to Cambridge. John's experiences at Christ’s College, Cambridge saw ecstasy and agony both. He did not settle down easily as quoted by a critic A N Wilson –"The College Tutor, in a clever undergraduate’s life, is important not as a teacher, but as an audience. If he fails to be appreciative or thinks to cut his pupil down to size, life quickly becomes hellish."
The same case was with John and his tutor William Chappell, who was a very difficult man to please. Though the clear facts are not known, but the incident of John getting lashing from Chappell, John leaving Cambridge temporarily and ultimately John changing his tutor became quite controversial.
At Cambridge he was also known as 'Lady of Christ’s Coll', due to his youthful good looks, but perhaps more due to dissociation from usual social and athletic activities of male college mates. This child of privileged childhood found it a bit difficult to share his attic room with other three boys, and the most difficult thing for him was to adjust his reading hours. The one who was used to sit up till almost midnight devouring book after book, had to read among the clatter and chatter of other boys. He was considered a snobbish loner. However, he was a favorite among the students and was well-known for his sharp intellect.
The Poet Emerged
The plague broke out in London and the Miltons shifted to countryside for some time. He found his return to Cambridge after the epidemic a kind of punishment. He was at Christ’s College during 1625-32. From 1632 to 1638 he was at his parent’s home in 'studios retirement', as he called it. Perhaps due to age and need for attention, he was compelled to stay with them. Milton now firmly decided to move ahead with a poetic career, rather than pursue the ministry. He had already started writing verses. He wrote elegies to dead Bishops. As a youth he enjoyed the natural beauty and beauty of women, he enjoyed reading and writing and attending church. All these have been reflected in is poems. The additional crisp into his poems was the result of his affaction and adoration for a girl called Emily or Emilia. Who she was and other details are not known but John confessed his love for the girl to his childhood friend Diodati. He used to write Italian verses praising her beauty. The affair never came to a favourable conclusion but it left a great impact on John's mind and heart, so much so that he got married after almost 13 years of his affair with Emilia.
The Traveler Milton
In 1637, Milton’s mother died in Horton. For a change, he traveled to France and Italy, and returned to London. He visited Paris, Nice, Genoa, Leghron, Pisa, Florence, Siene, Rome, Naples, Venice, Verona, Milan, Lake Leman, and Geneva. In Rome, he spoke freely on religious matters, which evoked anger from the English Jesuits. For Milton it was more than holidaying, he wanted to meet and exchange ideas with great minds of his time. He met the ultimate authority on international law, a poet, a dramatist and a theologian Hugo Grotius.
Visiting Italy was a kind of homecoming for Milton. He had almost known the country, and especially Florence through Diodati. The historic city of Florence inspired Milton to write his great work in Ehglish. At Florence, Milton visited the famous Galileo, who had grown old and was a prisoner to the Inquisition for his astronomical views. For Milton, Galileo was a man who saw and revealed the true nature of things, such as the moon. Milton’s dedication to the cause of his own nation’s liberty was given a boost here. While on tour, he got the shocking news of death of Charles Diodati.
Return
Upon his return to London, Milton, instead of going to his father’s home took lodgings at St Bride’s Churchyard for a few months with his nephew. He also started teaching in a school. His nephews and some other students served as amanuenses entering things in the Trinity Manuscript and penning personal letters and documents for him.
Milton found himself immersed in religious controversy supporting the removal of the bureaucracy of episcopacy from the church. He also worked on the topic of divorce to gain personal and domestic liberty. His views were met with a strong negative reaction.
Marriage
Visiting Richard Powell and his family, indebted to Milton’s father, was a pleasure to him. He enjoyed Mary's company the most, the eldest daughter of the Powells. She was a lively girl of 17, almost half his age. Perhaps Milton journeyed to Oxfordshire to collect payment on behalf of his father but stayed for a while, and returned to London with his bride. (Perhaps the marriage altered the indebtedness.) The marriage took place immediately, almost without any courtship period. Back at London, Milton busied himself into his books, but for Mary it was a profound shock. For Mary, brought up in a large household of 11 siblings and talkative mother, the silence and aloofness of Milton was just unimaginable. Mary returned to her family’s home just after marriage and did not rejoin Milton for three years. During this period he was writing on several subjects of which divorce was one that raised several controversies. However, this was not the reason why Milton wrote in defense of divorce as he had started exploring the matter of divorce before marriage.
The Reunion
With Mary returning to him in 1645, Milton accompanied by his father and nephews, moved to larger quarters in the Barbican. A year later, his in-laws had to join them following the war and despite his disapproval of their taking away his wife, Milton took all seven Powells under his roof out of his Christian spirit. The year brought both good and bad news for the Miltons. On July 29, 1646, Mary gave birth to Anne, their first born. The same year on December 13, Richard Powell passed away. Both the incidents doubled Milton's responsibilities. He also lost his father on March 15 the following year.
The Dark Side Of Life
He was made Secretary for Foreign Tongues on March 20, 1649 under the newly formed Republican government. His job was not of the great interest to appeal Milton's intellectual or literary capacity. Yet he accepted it out of duty and of course the steady source of income was a major reason to accept the job for this man of expanding family. Mary had, meanwhile, given birth to their second daughter Mary and son John. She was again pregnant in 1652 and gave birth to Deborah on May 2. But she could not survive to nurse and raise the child. She passed away three days later. Milton was to suffer another blow in form of John's death just within six weeks of Mary's demise. Milton was totally devastated with his personal tragedies.
At this stage, his onset of blindness had a major impact on his forthcoming works especially Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes. During this period, he wrote Defensio in order to reply Salmasius' Eikonoklastes. Milton’s sight began to deteriorate noticeably and within five years he lost sight from his left eye and by 1652 he became totally blind.
With the victory of the Parliamentarians and the trial of Charles I in 1648, Milton became optimistic for Political Liberty for his country. The antimonarchical argument in his prose work The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, written during this time, offend justification for such measures though specifically not arguing the regicide.
Blindness, obviously eroded Milton’s earlier position of significance to what has been called Latin Secretary. He gradually did less and less translation and no commissioned work. His secretarial position remained till 1659.
The Lonely Life
In 1660, with the restoration of King Charles II, antagonistic sentiment towards Milton was obvious. He went into hiding, staying with his friend Edward Millington, the bookseller. But finally he was traced and imprisoned. Helped by his friends, he was released by paying a small fine, which he resisted to pay.
His blindness, ill health and other controversial issues, followed with the loss of his wife and son. In 1656, Katherine Woodcock went on to be Milton’s second wife. She became a helpmate to Milton on domestic front and a companion to this lonely widower. A daughter was born soon after, but the tragedy struck again and his wife and daughter died in 1658, leaving Milton alone with his three young daughters till he married for the third time.
Elizabeth Minshull
His third marriage to Elizabeth Minshull, who was perhaps more a housekeeper and governess than a wife, brought some lighter and joyous moments in Milton’s life. They got married on February 24, 1663. The incident also brought out the differences between Milton and his daughters. All three of them were brought up by their grandmother Powell and might have been encouraged to act against Milton. He also never took any active interest in their upbringing, he not even bothered to inform them of his marriage to Elizabeth Minshull. They came to know about the ceremony through a servant. But Betty, as he called her, and Milton shared a cordial relationship during their 12 years of married life, till Milton's death. On several evenings, Milton enjoyed to listen her sing while he accompanied her on the organ after dinner.
Completion Of Paradise Lost
As the rigors of Restoration faded, Milton returned to finish Paradise Lost, which was completed in 1665. The tragic Plague of London in 1665 compelled Milton and his family to move to the cottage at Chalfont St Giles, the only Milton residence still standing today. There was a great fire in London, which delayed the publication of Paradise Lost and it did not appear till 1667.
Paradise Lost did not meet with immediate success, mainly due to its length, its subject, its blank verse and its narration. He also had to take severe criticism, as severe as to call Milton's blindness the result of God's wrath towards his writings by some critics of his time. At the same time his popularity was blooming abroad for his epic.
Later Years
His last years were comparatively calm. He started working on Paradise Regained. Problems of inheritance after Milton’s death reveal that there were strains between his daughters and their stepmother, though antagonism mostly seems to come from the middle daughter Mary. May be, the strictures passed by Milton on his children caused the child - parent discord along with step-parent discord. Mary seems to have shared the spirit of independence inherited from Milton. Milton’s reference to his children as unkind and children’s lack of duty towards Milton, certainly reflect strained relationship among them during his last years.
He had a peaceful death, in presence of his wife and a few good friends. Milton died, probably of heart attack on Sunday, November 8, in 1674 and was buried at St. Giles, Cripplegate. A century later, a group of drunkards dug up his remains and supposed to have been sold to relic-mongers.
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