JOHN MILTON. — English poet, b. in London on 9 Dec. 1608, d. there on 18 Nov. 1674. Even before going to the University of Cambridge, the studies he had pursued as a boy had already given him knowledge of several languages and of philosophy.
At Cambridge he distinguished himself by various Latin compositions, both in prose and verse, and wrote his first major lyric: *On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity*. After spending several years in his father’s house at Horton, where he continued to study and to compose verse (to this period are to be assigned *L’Allegro*, *Il Penseroso*, and *Lycidas*, the latter an elegy on the death of Edward King, his fellow-student at Cambridge), he made a journey to Italy in 1638–39, where he received compliments from the men of letters of our Academies (some of his poems in Italian may have been written before the journey), and from there he returned to take part in the Cromwellian revolution. Joining the party of the Protector, he became secretary for Latin correspondence to the princes, and, though not entirely abandoning poetry and the realization of dramatic projects with which he had returned from Italy, he published a considerable series of prose works of a political, religious, and pedagogical character. The poem for which M. is best known, *Paradise Lost*, the exact year in which the poet began its composition being uncertain, appeared in its first edition, in 10 books, in 1667, and in its second, in 12 books, in 1674. *Paradise Regained*, in 4 books, appeared in 1671, together with the tragedy *Samson Agonistes*.
The latter, which tells, in classical form with long monologues, lively dialogues, and choral comments, the story of the biblical hero, was written about 40 years after M.’s other dramatic work, *Comus*, which dates from 1634, and which, in the form of a masque, i.e., a musical work, dramatically presents the temptation of the flesh, violent but easily overcome. *Comus* is, in a certain sense, a continuation of medieval moralities, with the typical characters of the virtues and vices contending for the possession and liberation of a maiden, abducted by the son of Circe, Comus.
The theme of temptation was particularly dear to M., who developed it in the two *Paradises*. The first, indeed, tells in blank verse the expulsion of the spirits from the celestial Paradise and that of men from the terrestrial Paradise. It is the archangel Raphael who recounts the first to the first parents, while the second is narrated directly by the poet. The description of Hell, i.e., of those who have lost the eternal Paradise, opens the poem, which closes with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the terrestrial Paradise. They go forth, “hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,” not without a hope of the future Redeemer, pointed out in the prophetic vision of history given them by the archangel Michael.
The history of the world is taken up again in *Paradise Regained*, which has as its theme yet another temptation, that of Christ, the Second Adam. Satan causes the great ancient civilizations to pass before His spirit in a representation that intertwines with the temptations recounted in the Gospel.
Almost all of M.’s prose works deal with controversial subjects: on the reform of the institution of marriage, on the reform of the Church, on the freedom of the press, on the defence of the republicans in their struggle against the monarchy.
In several points M.’s thought diverges both from dogma and from orthodox morality.
ALBERTO CASTELLI