T.Y.B.A. (ENG)
SEM : 5
CCE : 14
✔ John
Milton (1608-1674)
John
Milton was born in Breadstreet, Cheapside, London. Milton’s paternal grandfather, Richard, was a
staunch Roman Catholic who expelled his son John, the poet’s father, from the
family home in Oxfordshire for reading an English (i.e., Protestant) Bible. His father was a money Scrivener. He
attended St. Paul's School in London and Cambridge. His stubborn, aggressive
personality and refusal to follow commands leads him for a term at university. At
St. Paul's, Milton met Charles Diodati, a fellow student who would become his
friend throughout his adolescence. Milton may have heard sermons by the poet
John Donne, dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was seen from his school,
during his early years. Milton, who was educated in Latin and Greek there,
eventually acquired skill in other languages, particularly Italian.
After
receiving his last degree (1632), he abandoned his ambition of entering the
church and retired to Horton. His primary studies were poetry, mathematics, and
music. Milton spent the following few years as an isolated man of letters. In
1638, he travelled to Italy, where he met many scholars, including Galileo.
When the news of forthcoming civil war drew him back to England, he refused to
fight.
He
married Mary Powell, a woman much younger than himself, in 1643, and she left
him nearly immediately and did not return for two years. This tragic condition
compelled him to produce two powerful pamphlets on divorce, which sparked a
great deal of debate at the time. Following the execution of the monarch
in 1649, he was named secretary for the foreign Tongues by the commonwealth
administration. He also produced countless pamphlets in support of the
republican cause. His eyesight was fading by this point, leaving him
blind, destitute, and alone. He was escaped from the severe punishments that
were imposed to many prominent roundheads but Milton was slightly punished by a
brief imprisonment.
👉His
Prose.
The
majority of his prose was composed between the ages of 1640 and 1660. The
literary works are of unusual interest since they generally have a direct influence
on either personal or public life. He had written twenty-five booklets,
twenty-one of which were in English and the remaining four in Latin.
In 1641, he began pamphleteering and engaged in a heated debate with Bishop Hall on episcopacy. He authored a poor tract on education while teaching (1644).
When his wife abandoned him, he wrote two pamphlets about divorce (1643 &1644) that outraged the people with their freedom of expression and harsh character.
Areopagitica (1644), a magnificent and impassioned plea for press
liberty, was written by him. During his latter years, Milton worked on a
History of Britain and other Scholastic writings.
👉His
Prose Style.
His
pamphlets were printed on heat while some topic was hotly debated, either
in Milton's or the public mind. They are agitated, disorganised, wordy,
violent, and lack style.
They
exhibit great activity, a mind that is both broad in principles and narrow in
applications, a vivid imagination and capacious scholarship. They lack humour,
proportion, and restraint, but despite this, they are among the most
controversial compositions in the language.
👉His
Poetry.
John
Milton’s poetry was written during the two periods separated from each other by
Twenty Years :
a) The
period of his university career and his stay at Horton from 1629 to 1640.
b) The
last years of his life from about 1660 to 1674.
In
between these two periods, he had written a few sonnets.
Milton
began writing poems of exceptional maturity while still a student. Among them
are 'odes on the morning of Christ's nativity (1629)', 'on Shakespeare (1630)',
and 'on arriving at the age of twenty-three (1631)'. These poems demonstrate
Milton's grasp of magnificent diction as well as his lofty literary and
theological ambitions. Milton’s first elegy, “Elegia prima ad Carolum Diodatum,” was a letter
to Diodati, who was a student at Oxford while Milton attended Cambridge. "In Quintum Novembris" ("On the Fifth of
November"), written by Milton in 1626 in Cambridge, is another early Latin
poem. The poem commemorates the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Guy Fawkes
was discovered attempting to ignite explosives during the inauguration of Parliament,
an event in which King James I and his family would take part. Milton wrote a rare poem, "On the Death of a Fair Infant
Dying of a Cough," in 1628, in which he mourned the death of his niece
Anne, the daughter of his older sister. Milton warmly remembers the child, who
was just two years old. While at Horton (possibly in 1632), he
wrote L'Allegro and II Penseroso, two longish poems in octosyllabic couplets
about the thoughtful man's experiences.
The
pieces are decorative and descriptive, with full of fancy and poetical
phrasing. Comus (1634) belongs to this period and is a masque with blank verse.
Lycidas
(1637) is an elegy for his friend Edward King, who drowned on his voyage to
Ireland. The main subject of the poem is Milton's mental agony as a result of
his awareness that his quest for renown may be put at risk. In his mood, we see
the interplay of doubt, fear, fury, and finally, a peaceful reliance on the
notion that true fame depends on God and can only be found in heaven. This
underlying theme is what gives the poem its emotional honesty.
Lycidas,
which is regarded as one of Milton's greatest efforts, is well-known in English
poetry. It takes on a pastoral tone. Milton's grip, which can wring the core of
poetry from intractable material. The elegy has the colour and music of
the best Spenserian verse, but it also has a rising majesty of epithet and a
dignified intensity of feeling that Spenser lacks.
From
1660 until 1674, we have Milton's mature poetry. The middle years' work
consists of a few sonnets. It shows Milton's mastery of the Italian form. He
gives it a sweep and resounding impressiveness that separate him from
Wordsworth. Milton's strongest sonnets are 'on his blindness' and 'on the late
massacre in piedmont.'
👉Paradise
Lost.
The
exceptional work of this time is Paradise Lost. It was first published in 1667.
It was originally separated into ten books, but in the second edition, it was
redivided into twelve books. It maintains to the intense unity of classical
epic, and its theme is the fall of man. It describes Lucifer's revolt in
heaven, celestial conflict, and the removal of the rebels. The poem is wide and
dominating, splendid with all the richness that Milton's rich imagination,
fueled with classical and biblical wisdom, could create. Galileo would become the only contemporary whom Milton mentioned
by name in Paradise Lost.
The
use of blank verse in the composition is new and excellent. In English, this
style of blank verse has become a tradition. It has been frequently imitated
and adapted. It lacks the flexibility of Shakespearian measure, but it is
natural with splendour and scholarly care.
It
is practically infinite in modulation, skilfully varied in scansion, pause,
rhythm, and sonorous magnificence of tune. It has its moments of wordiness and
bombast, but they are few and far between.
👉Paradise
Regained and Samson Agonistes.
Milton
published his final volume of poetry in 1671, which included 'paradise regained'
and 'Samson Agonistes'. The paradise Regained speaks of Christ's
temptation and victory and is complementary to the earlier epic. Milton
anticipated it would surpass its predecessor. His dreams were dashed as a
result of poorer than paradise lost. It lacks the prior poem's strong
imagination, ornamented and extended rhythms. There is little action, and the
characters are dull; the writing approaches paradise only in a few exceptional
sections
John
Milton's Samson Agonistes is a tragic closet drama. Samson, who has been
imprisoned and blinded by the Philistines in Gaza, laments his situation,
noting that the one who was supposed to defend Israel from the Philistines has
now become their slave. He explains that his blindness is by far the most
difficult feature of his confinement, as it isolates him from God's creation.
He is so depressed that he refers to himself as a living grave.
The
work has the intense unity of time, place, and action that is common in Greek
tragedy. It is bleak and simple in style, ruthless and forbidding in sections,
but Milton's hard soul is wounded with pity and uplifted by the hope that looks
beyond in several places.
👉Features
of his Poetry.
1) 👉The
puritan Strain.
Milton's
religious zeal remained strong throughout his life. Even the opponents could
not doubt his genuineness. It lasts till the end, when it becomes deeper and
darker. His main goal in Paradise Lost, for example, is to "justify the
ways of God to men." The selection of religious subjects, particularly in
the later poems, shows a sense of responsibility and ethics. The desire to
lecture and preach, which is a positive weakness in paradise lost. The
narrowness of perspective and the severe puritanism.
2) 👉The
Classical Strain.
Curiously
interconnected with the rigidity of his religious temperament is a strong pagan
and sensual tendency towards the classics. His knowledge was so advanced that
he could write Latin prose and verse as freely as he did English. His classical
leanings can be seen in his use of classical and semi-classical forms such as
the epic, Greek tragedy, and pastoral. His love of classical allusion runs
strong throughout his poems.
3) 👉His
poetical genius.
Milton
is not a big innovator as a poet; rather, his duty is to refine and improve.
His achievements in the epic, ode, classical drama, sonnet, masque, and elegy
have never been surpassed and are rarely approached. We notice the same ease,
certainty, and success in all of his metres.
4) 👉His
position in literature.
Milton
holds a pivotal central or transitional position. He arrived soon after the
Elizabethan age, when Elizabethan ways were disintegrating. His hand and temper
were strong enough to unite the chaotic tendencies of poetry and give them
certainty, correctness, and diversity.
👉His
Works.
👉POETRY
AND DRAMA.
Ø On the Morning of Christ's Nativity
(1629)
Ø On Shakespeare (1630)
Ø On Arriving
at the Age of Twenty-Three (1631)
Ø L'Allegro (1632)
Ø Il Penseroso (1632)
Ø Comus (1634)
Ø Lycidas (1637)
Ø On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
(1655)
Ø Paradise Lost (1667)
Ø Paradise Regained (1671)
Ø Samson Agonistes (1671)
PROSE.
Ø Of Reformation (1641)
Ø Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641)
Ø Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
Ø Judgement of Martin Bucer Concerning
Divorce (1644)
Ø Of Education (1644)
Ø Areopagitica (1644)
Ø Tetrachordon (1645)
Ø Colasterion (1645)
Ø The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)
Ø Eikonoklastes (1649)
Ø A Treatise of Civil Power (1659)
Ø The History of Britain (1670)
Ø Of True Religion (1673)
Work cited
Albert, Edward. History
of English literature, Oxford University Press, 1979.
J Long, William. English
Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English
Speaking world. Rupa Publications, 2015.
Carter, Ronald and John
Mcrae. The Routledge history of literature in English : Britain and Ireland.
Routledge, 2016.
2 comments:
good work 👍
Thank you.
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