Life of John Milton

In recording the publication of "Paradise Lost" in 1667, we have passed over the interval of Milton's life immediately subsequent to the completion of the poem in 1663. The firs...

Bruce, Archibald.--A critical account of the life, character, and discourses of Mr. Alexander Morus, in which the attack made upon him in the writings of Milton is particularly...

Four times has a great English poet taken up his abode in "the paradise of exiles," and remained there until deeply imbued with the spirit of the land. The Italian residence of...

These lines, slightly altered from Shelley, are more applicable to the slow growth and sudden apparition of "Paradise Lost" than to most of those births of genius whose maturity...

Milton was appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues on March 15, 1649. He removed from High Holborn to Spring Gardens to be near the scene of his labours, and was soon afterwards...

John Milton was born on December 9, 1608, when Shakespeare had lately produced "Antony and Cleopatra," when Bacon was writing his "Wisdom of the Ancients" and Ralegh his "Histor...

Doctor Johnson deemed "the knowledge of nature half the task of a poet," but not until he had written all his poetry did he repair to the Highlands. Milton allows natural scienc...

Ranging with Milton's spirit over the "fresh woods and pastures new," foreshadowed in the closing verse of "Lycidas," we have left his mortal part in its suburban dwelling in Al...

The world's great epics group themselves in two divisions, which may be roughly defined as the natural and the artificial. The spontaneous or self-created epic is a confluence o...

---- Lycidas. Reprinted from the first edition of 1638, and collated with the autograph copy in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. With a version in Latin hexameters. By...

Milton's poetical projects after his return from Italy; drafts of "Paradise Lost" among them; the poem originally designed as a masque or miracle-play; commenced as an epic in 1...

Milton as a Parliamentarian; his sonnet, "When the Assault was intended to the City," November, 1642; goes on a visit to the Powell family in Oxfordshire, and returns with Mary...

Milton's duties as Latin Secretary; he drafts manifesto on the state of Ireland; occasionally employed as licenser of the press; commissioned to answer "Eikon Basilike"; controv...

Milton's migration to Chalfont St. Giles to escape the plague in London, July, 1665; subject of "Paradise Regained" suggested to him by the Quaker Ellwood; his losses by the Gre...

Place of "Paradise Lost" among the great epics of the world; not rendered obsolete by changes in belief; the inevitable defects of its plan compensated by the poet's vital relat...

Milton born in Bread Street, Cheapside, December 9, 1608; condition of English literature at his birth; part in its development assigned to him; materials available for his biog...

Horton, its scenery and associations with Milton; Milton's studies and poetical aspirations; exceptional nature of his poetical development; his Latin poems; "Arcades" and "Comu...

State of Italy at the period of Milton's visit; his acquaintance with Italian literati at Florence; visit to Galileo; at Rome and Naples; returns to England, July, 1639; settles...