Paradise Lost (1667 (12-book edition 1674))
Blank-verse epic of Satan's rebellion and the Fall of Adam and Eve
Literature · Poets
John Milton
1608–1674 · English
17th-century English poetry; Puritan republican prose
John Milton was a London-born poet, scholar and polemicist who served Cromwell's Commonwealth as Secretary for Foreign Tongues and defended the execution of Charles I. Blind by the early 1650s, he dictated Paradise Lost, a blank-verse epic of the Fall of Man widely regarded as the greatest long poem in English. His other works include Lycidas, Comus, Samson Agonistes and influential tracts on liberty and divorce.
How to spot them
- ▸Paradise Lost: Satan, the fall of Adam and Eve, 'to justify the ways of God to men'
- ▸Went blind c. 1652; the sonnet 'When I consider how my light is spent'
- ▸Secretary for Foreign Tongues under Cromwell; defended regicide in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
- ▸Lycidas (elegy for Edward King); Comus (performed at Ludlow Castle)
- ▸Nicknamed 'the Lady of Christ's' at Cambridge; coined the word 'Pandemonium'
Key works
Paradise Regained (1671)
Shorter epic in which Christ resists Satan's temptations in the wilderness
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Closet tragedy on the blinded Samson's last day among the Philistines
Lycidas (1638)
Pastoral elegy for his Cambridge contemporary Edward King, drowned in the Irish Sea
Comus (A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle) (1634 (performed))
Masque in which a Lady resists the enchanter Comus; performed for the Earl of Bridgewater
L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (c. 1631 (published 1645))
Companion poems contrasting the cheerful and the contemplative man
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)
Tract defending the right of the people to depose and execute a tyrant
When I consider how my light is spent (On His Blindness) (c. 1652–1655)
Sonnet on losing his sight, ending 'They also serve who only stand and wait'
Key ideas
- Paradise Lost aims to 'justify the ways of God to men'
- Blake's remark that Milton was 'of the Devil's party without knowing it' reflects Satan's magnetism in the poem
- Argued for divorce on grounds of incompatibility and against pre-publication licensing of books
- Rejected rhyme in Paradise Lost, using English blank verse for epic
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London; educated at St Paul's School and Christ's College, Cambridge
- •Satan declares it 'Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven' (Paradise Lost, Book I)
- •Coined 'Pandemonium', the capital of Hell in Paradise Lost
- •Received an initial £5 for Paradise Lost from the printer Samuel Simmons
- •The first edition of Paradise Lost had ten books; the second (1674) was rearranged into twelve
- •Totally blind by about 1652 and dictated his later poetry to amanuenses
- •Briefly imprisoned after the Restoration of 1660 but spared, reportedly with help from Andrew Marvell
- •Buried in St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London
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Sources
- Poetry Foundation — John Milton
- Gordon Campbell and Thomas N. Corns — John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought