| 约翰·弥尔顿 | |||||
| 弥尔顿 | |||||
| 出生地： | 伦敦 | ||||
阅读米尔顿 John Milton在诗海的作品!!! | |||||
约翰·弥尔顿（John Milton,1608～1674）英国诗人、政论家。1608年12月9日出生于伦敦一个富裕的清教徒家庭。父亲爱好文学，受其影响，弥尔顿从小喜爱读书，尤其喜爱文学。1625年16岁时入剑桥大学，并开始写诗，1632年取得硕士学位。因目睹当时国教日趋反动，他放弃了当教会牧师的念头，闭门攻读文学6年，一心想写出能传世的伟大诗篇。
1638年弥尔顿为增长见闻到当时欧洲文化中心意大利旅行，拜会了当地的文人志士，其中有被天主教会囚禁的伽利略。弥尔顿深为伽利略在逆境中坚持真理的精神所感动。翌年听说英国革命即将爆发，便中止旅行，仓促回国，投身革命运动。
1641年，弥尔顿站在革命的清教徒一边，开始参加宗教论战，反对封建王朝的支柱国教。他在一年多的时间里发表了5本有关宗教自由的小册子，1644年又为争取言论自由而写了《论出版自由》。
1649年，革命阵营中的独立派将国王推上断头台，成立共和国。弥尔顿为提高革命人民的信心和巩固革命政权，发表《论国王与官吏的职权》等文，并参加了革命政府工作，担任拉丁文秘书职务。1652年因劳累过度，双目失明。
1660年，王朝复辟，弥尔顿被捕入狱，不久又被释放。从此他专心写诗，为实现伟大的文学抱负而艰苦努力，在亲友的协助下，共写出3首长诗：《失乐园》(1667)，《复乐园》(1671)和《力士参孙》(1671)。1674年11月8日卒于伦敦。
名人杰作
约翰·弥尔顿(1608-1674)生于伦敦一个富裕的清教徒家庭，在剑桥大学求学时和毕业后一个时期，钻研古代和文艺复兴时期文学，深受人文主义思想熏陶。1638年他旅行意大利，访问过被天主教会关在狱里的伽利略，并和意大利的文人学者交往。1639年，英国革命形势紧张，他回国参加反对国王和国教的斗争，在1641-1645年间发表过许多政论小册子，1649年共和国成立后，新政府任命他为拉丁文秘书。他写了不少文章捍卫共和国，因积劳过度，双目失明，但仍坚持斗争。王朝复辟后，他受到迫害，著作被焚毁，生活贫困。这一时期，他完成了三部杰作：《失乐园》、《复乐园》和《力士参孙》。
弥尔顿早年的创作主要是短诗，其中较为著名的有《快乐的人》和《幽思的人》(1632)。这两首诗描写诗人的轻松愉快心情和沉思的乐趣，体现了人文主义者对生活享受的追求。他的十四行诗歌颂自由，斥责教会，或抒写个人的情怀，艺术上有较高的成就。
弥尔顿在担任政府职务前后写过不少政论文，参加宗教和政治论战。他站在清教徒立场，主张取消国教的主教制度，并在政治问题上给王党以有力打击。他的《论出版自由》(1644)主张言论自由，反对当权的长老派的跋扈。《论国王与官吏的职权》(1649)从《圣经》和古希腊、罗马的政治学说中找出论据，说明人民有权废除和杀死暴君，以坚定人民的革命信心。《为英国人民声辩》(1651)驳斥反动派所谓英国人民犯了弑君之罪的谰言。
《失乐园》(1667)长约一万行，分十二卷，故事取自《旧约》。夏娃和亚当因受撒旦引诱，偷吃知识树上的禁果，违背了上帝旨令，被逐出乐园。撒旦原是大天使，但他骄矜自满，纠合一部分天使，和上帝作战(卷5、6)，于是被打到地狱里遭受苦难(卷1、2)。他这时已无力反攻天堂，才想出间接报复的办法，企图毁灭上帝创造的人类。上帝知道撒旦的阴谋，但为考验人类对他的信仰，便不阻挠撒旦。撒旦冲过混沌，潜入人世，来到亚当居住的乐园(卷3、4)。上帝派遣拉法尔天使告诉亚当面临的危险，同时把上帝创造世界和人类的经过告诉他(卷7、8)。但是亚当和夏娃意志不坚，受了撒旦的引诱，吃了禁果(卷9)。上帝决定惩罚他们(卷10)，命迈克尔天使把他们逐出乐园，在放逐前，迈克尔把人类将要遭遇的灾难告诉了他们(卷11、12)。
诗人写这首诗的目的在于说明人类不幸的根源。他认为人类由于理性不强，意志薄弱，经不起外界的影响和引诱，因而感情冲动，走错道路，丧失了乐园。夏娃的堕落是由于盲目求知，妄想成神。亚当的堕落是由于溺爱妻子，感情用事。撒旦的堕落是由于野心勃勃，骄傲自满。诗人通过他们的遭遇，暗示英国资产阶级革命也由于道德堕落、骄奢淫逸而惨遭失败。
弥尔顿继承了十六世纪的人文主义思想，接受了十七世纪新科学的成就，同时对它们采取批判的态度。他肯定人生，但否定无限制的享乐。他肯定人的进取心、自豪感，但否定由此演变出来的野心和骄傲。他肯定科学，但认为科学并不是一切，有科学而没有正义和理想，人类不会得到和平与幸福。弥尔顿的这种思想也就是革命的清教思想的反映。
弥尔顿在思想上要批判骄矜的撒旦，感情上却同情他所处的地位，因为撒旦受上帝惩罚，很像资产阶级受封建贵族的压迫。在描绘地狱一场时，弥尔顿虽然口口声声说撒旦骄傲、野心勃勃，但在对话里，在形象上，撒旦又完全是一个受迫害的革命者。这个形象十分雄伟，在凶险的地狱背景衬托下，他的战斗决心表现得更鲜明。撒旦说：
战场上虽然失利，怕什么?
这不可征服的意志，报复的决心，
切齿的仇恨，和一种永不屈膝，
永不投降的意志——却都未丧失。
同时通过和撒旦一起被贬入地狱的天使们的形象，诗人描绘了当年愤怒的革命战士：
对最高的掌权者，
他们发出了怒吼，并用手中的枪，
在他们盾牌上，敲出猛烈的声响，
愤愤然向头上的天穹挑战。
这是英国资产阶级革命的不可磨灭的记录，是卓越的艺术成就。而诗中的上帝却显得冷酷无情，缺乏生气。
弥尔顿在这首诗里对于封建贵族的放荡生活也给予尖锐的批评。
在《失乐园》里，弥尔顿显示了高超的艺术。诗人的革命热情和高远的想象使他雕塑出十分雄伟的人物形象，如撒旦、罪恶、死亡等，描绘了壮阔的背景，如地狱、混沌、人间等。他的诗歌风格是高昂的。诗中运用了璀璨瑰丽、富有抒情气氛的比喻，独特的拉丁语的句法，和雄浑洪亮的音调等。在结构上，《失乐园》承继着古希腊、罗马史诗的传统，成为英国文学中一部杰出的史诗。
《复乐园》(1671)四卷，根据《新约·路加福音》描述耶稣被诱惑的故事。耶稣在约旦河畔由圣徒约翰施洗后，准备公开布道，这时圣灵引他到荒郊，先要给他一次考验。这考验就是撒旦对他的引诱。撒旦第一天以筵席，第二天以城市的繁华和古希腊、罗马的文学艺术引诱耶稣，都遭到拒绝。第三天撒旦使用暴力，把耶稣放在耶路撒冷的庙宇的顶上，他也毫不畏惧。后来天使们把他接下来，认为他胜利地经受了考验，于是他开始面道，替人类恢复乐园。
《复乐园》和《失乐园》都说明了生活的引诱问题，但《失乐园》所强调的是理性控制情欲，是人文主义对生活的肯定和清教的道德观之间的相互协调；而《复乐园》则强调信仰消除情欲，体现宗教思想的胜利，这首诗反映了革命挫败后，诗人厌弃和抗拒复辟王朝的道德堕落和反动王朝对古代文化的歪，以锻炼自己的性格，继续和封建势力作斗争。诗里的耶稣念念不忘罗马奴役下的以色列，他认为以色列的解放一时还不能实现，但是它说：“一旦那一天来临，你不要想象我会坐失良机。”这说明了诗人对英国革命的始终不渝的态度。
《力士参孙》(1671)是一出悲剧，取材于《旧约·士师记》。参孙是以色列民族英雄，被妻子大利拉出卖给非利士敌人，眼珠被挖掉，每日给敌人推磨。一个节日，非利士人庆祝对参孙的胜利；参孙痛苦万分，这时他父亲劝他和解，大利拉的忏悔更给他以刺激，敌人赫拉发对他威胁和侮辱，这些都激发了他的战斗精神。在敌人威逼他表演武艺之后，他撼倒了演武大厦的支柱，整个大厦坝塌，他和敌人同归于尽。
这出悲剧表现了坚强的革命精神。它反映了王朝辟后资产阶级革命者内心的痛苦和身受的迫害。歌队这样责难神：
你甚至叫他们
色在邪门异教的刀剑之下，
把他们尸体丢给野狗、猛禽；
或使他们作俘虏，
或朝代改了，在暗无天日的法庭里
受负义群氓的审判处刑。
从这里可以看出复辟王朝如何残酷地对待革命者，如何杀的杀，放逐的放逐，就连克伦威尔的尸体也被枭首示众。他们痛苦异常，愤怒无比，一定要继续革命：
有一天神会把不可战胜的力量
放在人民救星的手里，
来镇压世间的暴力、人民的迫害者
和野兽一般狂暴的恶人。
诗人也指出深自忏悔，克制骄矜，控制情欲，恢复信心，是资产阶级革命的道路。
《力士参孙》采用了崇高严肃的题材，具有汹涌澎湃的感情，质朴有力的语言，活泼有节的音律。这一悲剧是弥尔顿艺术的新发展。它运用希腊悲剧形式，实际上是一部宏伟的剧诗。
弥尔顿也是英国又一位现实主义教育的重要人物。他生活于17世纪，是当时资产阶级革命的出色辩护人和在文学界具有重要地位的杰出诗人。其教育观点主要体现在1644年《论教育》这篇著名的论文之中。
弥尔顿在《论教育》一文中严厉批评了当时英国学校的教育。指出学校“违反常规地强迫头脑中空无所有的孩子去写作文、写诗、写演说词”，还用很长的时间学习日常少用的希腊语和拉丁语等，浪费了青少年的宝贵青春。到了大学，经院主义的逻辑学和形而上学又成为学生的主课，无法获得有用的知识，学生极易成为愚昧无知、唯利是图或野心勃勃的小人。因此，这样的教育已经到了非改革不可的程度，这是关系到民族存亡的大事。
人物简评
英国文学中的古典主义因素早在文艺复兴时期已经存在，从弥尔顿的作品中也可以看到古代文学的影响。但古典主义作为一个流派则是随复辟王朝从法国回来之后才形成的。英国古典主义流派依附反动封建王朝，从一开始就具有保守倾向。他的创始者是约翰·德莱顿(1631-1700)。他是复辟王朝的桂冠诗人，信仰天主教，他站在保守立场写了一些政治讽刺诗、宗教论争诗和剧本。他的文学评论如《论剧诗》(1668)和许多作品的序言，强调理性和规律，指出悲剧中三一律的重要性，主张形式完美。他推崇古希腊、罗马作家，但也肯定乔叟、斯宾塞、莎士比亚的成就。他观察敏锐，对作家的评论时有灼见，超出前人和同时代的评论家。他的大量古典主义创作，系统的古典主义理论，他的讽刺诗的技巧，他的翻译，他的准确平易的散文，都对18世纪英国古典主义文学有很大影响。
Very soon after his death—and continuing to the present day—Milton became the subject of partisan biographies, confirming T. S. Eliot’s belief that “of no other poet is it so difficult to consider the poetry simply as poetry, without our theological and political dispositions…making unlawful entry.” Milton’s radical, republican politics and heretical religious views, coupled with the perceived artificiality of his complicated Latinate verse, alienated Eliot and other readers; yet by dint of the overriding influence of his poetry and personality on subsequent generations—particularly the Romantic movement—the man whom Samuel Johnson disparaged as “an acrimonious and surly republican” must be counted one of the most significant writers and thinkers of all time.
Biography
The phases of Milton's life closely parallel the major historical divisions of Stuart Britain – the Caroline ancien régime, the Commonwealth of England and the Restoration – and it is important to situate his poetry and politics historically in order to see how both spring from the philosophical and religious beliefs Milton developed during the English Revolution. At his death in 1674, blind, impoverished, and yet unrepentant for his political choices, Milton had attained Europe-wide notoriety for his radical political and religious beliefs. Especially after the Glorious Revolution, Paradise Lost and his political writings would bring him lasting fame as the greatest poet of the sublime, and an unalloyed champion of liberty.
Family life and childhood
John Milton’s father, also named John Milton (1562 – 1647), moved to London around 1583 after being disinherited by his devout Catholic father, Richard Milton, for embracing Protestantism. In London, Milton senior married Sarah Jeffrey (1572 – 1637), the poet’s mother, and found lasting financial success as a scrivener (a profession that combined the functions of solicitor, realtor, public notary, and moneylender), where he lived and worked out of a house on Bread Street in Cheapside. The elder Milton was noted for his skill as a musical composer, and this talent left Milton with a lifetime appreciation for music and friendship with musicians like Henry Lawes.
After Milton was born on 9 December 1608, his father’s prosperity provided his eldest son with private tutoring, and a place at St Paul's School in London, where he began the study of Latin and Greek that would leave such an imprint on his poetry. The fledgling poet, whose first datable compositions are two psalms done at age 15 at Long Bennington, was remarkable for his work ethic: "When he was young," recalled Christopher, his younger brother, "he studied very hard and sat up very late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock at night." Milton was born on Bread Street, the same road where The Mermaid Tavern was located, where legend has it that Ben Jonson and other poets often caroused.
Cambridge years
John Milton matriculated Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1625 and, in preparation for becoming an Anglican priest, stayed on to obtain his Master of Arts degree on 3 July 1632. At Cambridge Milton befriended Anglo-American dissident and theologian, Roger Williams. Milton tutored Williams in Hebrew in exchange for lessons in Dutch. Though at Cambridge he developed a reputation for poetic skill and general erudition, Milton experienced alienation from his peers and university life as a whole. Watching his fellow students attempting comedy upon the college stage, he later observed that 'they thought themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools'. The feeling it seems was mutual; Milton, due to his hair, which he wore long, and his general delicacy of manner, was known as the "Lady of Christ's", an epithet probably applied with some degree of scorn. At some point Milton was probably rusticated for quarrelling with his tutor, which reflects the general disdain in which he held the university curriculum, consisting of stilted formal debates on abstruse topics conducted in Latin. Yet his corpus is not devoid of “quips, and cranks, and jollities,” notably his sixth prolusion and his jocular epitaphs on the death of Hobson, the driver of a coach between Cambridge and London. While at Cambridge he wrote a number of his well-known shorter English poems, among them Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, his Epitaph on the admirable Dramatick Poet, W. Shakespeare, his first poem to appear in print, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso.
Study, poetry, and travel
Upon receiving his MA in 1632, Milton retired to his father’s country homes at Hammersmith and Horton and undertook six years of self-directed private study by reading both ancient and modern works of theology, philosophy, history, politics, literature and science, in preparation for his prospective poetical career. Milton’s intellectual development can be charted via entries in his commonplace book, now in the British Library. As a result of such intensive study, Milton is considered to be among the most learned of all English poets; in addition to his six years of private study, Milton had command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian from his school and undergraduate days; he also added Old English to his linguistic repertoire in the 1650s while researching his History of Britain, and probably acquired proficiency in Dutch soon after.
Milton continued to write poetry during this period of study: his masques Arcades and Comus were composed for noble patrons, and he contributed his pastoral elegy Lycidas to a memorial collection for one of his Cambridge classmates in 1638. Drafts of these poems are preserved in Milton’s poetry notebook, known as the Trinity Manuscript because it is now kept at Trinity College, Cambridge.
After completing his course of private study in early 1638, Milton embarked upon a tour of France and Italy in May of the same year that was cut short 13 months later by what he later termed ‘sad tidings of civil war in England.’ Moving quickly through France, where he met Hugo Grotius, Milton sailed to Genoa, and quickly took in Pisa before he arrived in Florence around June. Florence, Rome, Naples, and Venice were Milton’s primary stops on his lengthy Italian visit, during which his candor of manner and erudite neo-Latin poetry made him many friends in intellectual circles. Milton met a number of famous and influential people through these connections, ranging from the astronomer Galileo to the nobleman Giovanni Battista Manso, patron of Torquato Tasso, to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII. After some time spent in Venice and other northern Italian cities, Milton returned to England in July via Switzerland and France.
Overall, in Italy Milton rejoiced in discovering the intellectual community he had missed at Cambridge—he even altered his handwriting and pronunciation of Latin to make them more Italian. At the same time, his firsthand observation of what he viewed as the superstitious tyranny of Catholicism increased his hatred for absolutist confessional states.
Civil war, prose tracts, and marriage
Upon returning to England, where the Bishops' Wars suggested that armed conflict between King Charles and his parliamentary opponents was imminent, Milton put poetry aside and began to write anti-episcopal prose tracts in the service of the Puritan and Parliamentary cause. Milton’s first foray into polemics was Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in England (1641), followed by Of Prelatical Episcopacy, the two defences of Smectymnuus (an organization of Protestant divines named from their initials: the "TY" belonged to Milton's favorite teacher from St Paul's, Thomas Young), and The Reason of Church Government Urged against Prelaty. With frequent passages of real eloquence lighting up the rough controversial style of the period, and with a wide knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity, he vigorously attacked the High-church party of the Church of England and their leader, William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Though supported by his father’s investments, at this time Milton also became a private schoolmaster, educating his nephews and other children of the well-to-do. This experience, and discussions with educational reformer Samuel Hartlib, led him to write in 1644 his short tract, Of Education, urging a reform of the national universities.
In June 1642, Milton took a mysterious trip into the countryside and returned with a 16-year-old bride, Mary Powell. A month later, finding life difficult with the severe 33-year-old schoolmaster and pamphleteer, Mary returned to her family. Because of the outbreak of the Civil War, she did not return until 1645; in the meantime her desertion prompted Milton, over the next three years, to publish a series of pamphlets arguing for the legality and morality of divorce. It was the hostile response accorded the divorce tracts that spurred Milton to write Areopagitica, his celebrated attack on censorship. In the midst of the excitement attending the possibility of establishing a new English government, Milton published his 1645 Poems—the only poetry of his to see print until Paradise Lost appeared in 1667.
Secretary of Foreign Tongues
With the parliamentary victory in the Civil War, Milton used his pen in defence of the republican principles represented by the Commonwealth. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) defended popular government and implicitly sanctioned the regicide; Milton’s political reputation got him appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State in March 1649. Though Milton's main job description was to compose the English Republic's foreign correspondence in Latin, he also was called upon to produce propaganda for the regime and to serve as a censor. In October 1649 he published Eikonoklastes, an explicit defence of the regicide, in response to the Eikon Basilike, a phenomenal best-seller popularly attributed to Charles I that portrayed the King as an innocent Christian martyr.
A month after Milton had tried to break this powerful image of Charles I (the literal translation of Eikonklastes is 'the image breaker'), the exiled Charles II and his party published a defence of monarchy, Defensio Regia Pro Carolo Primo, written by one of Europe's most renowned orators and scholars, Claudius Salmasius. By January of the following year, Milton was ordered to write a defence of the English people by the Council of State. Given the European audience and the English Republic's desire to establish diplomatic and cultural legitimacy, Milton worked much slower than usual, as he drew upon the vast array of learning marshalled throughout his years of study to compose a suitably withering riposte. On 24 February 1652 Milton published his Latin defence of the English People, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, also known as the First Defence. Milton's pure Latin prose and evident learning, exemplified in the First Defence, quickly made him the toast of all Europe. In 1654, in response to a Royalist tract, Regii sanguinis clamor, that made many personal attacks on Milton, he completed a second defence of the English nation, Defensio secunda, which praised Oliver Cromwell, now Lord Protector, while exhorting him to remain true to the principles of the Revolution. Alexander More, to whom Milton wrongly attributed the Clamor, published an attack on Milton, in response to which Milton published the autobiographical Defensio pro se in 1655. In addition to these literary defences of the Commonwealth and his character, Milton continued to translate official correspondence into Latin. The probable onset of glaucoma finally resulted by 1654 in total blindness, forcing him to dictate his verse and prose to amanuenses, one of whom was the poet Andrew Marvell.
After bearing him four children—Anne, Mary, John, and Deborah—Milton’s wife, Mary, died on May 5, 1652 from complications following Deborah's birth on May 2. In June, John died at age 15 months; Milton’s daughters survived to adulthood, but he always had a strained relationship with them. On November 12, 1656, Milton remarried, this time to Katherine Woodcock. Her death on February 3, 1658, less than four months after giving birth to their daughter, Katherine, who also died, prompted one of Milton’s most moving sonnets.
Milton and the Restoration
Milton later in lifeThough Cromwell’s death in 1658 caused the English Republic to collapse into feuding military and political factions, Milton stubbornly clung to the beliefs which had originally inspired him to write for the Commonwealth. In 1659 he published A Treatise of Civil Power, attacking the concept of a state church (known as Erastianism), as well as Considerations touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings, denouncing corrupt practises in church governance. As the Republic disintegrated Milton wrote several proposals to retain parliamentary supremacy over the army: A Letter to a Friend, Concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth, written in October 1659 in response to General Lambert’s recent dissolution of the Rump Parliament; Proposals of certain expedients for the preventing of a civil war now feared in November; and finally, as General Monck marched toward London to restore the Stuart monarchy, two editions of The Ready and Easy Way to Establishing a Free Commonwealth, an impassioned, bitter, and futile jeremiad damning the English people for backsliding from the cause of liberty.
Upon the Restoration in May 1660, Milton went into hiding for his life as a warrant was issued for his arrest and his writings burnt. Re-emerging after a general pardon was issued, he was nevertheless arrested and briefly imprisoned before influential friends, such as Marvell, now an MP, intervened. On February 24, 1663 Milton remarried, for a third and final time, a Wistaston, Cheshire-born woman Elizabeth (Betty) Minshull, then aged 24, and spent the remaining decade of his life living quietly in London, with the exception of retiring to a cottage in Chalfont St. Giles (his only extant home) during the Great Plague. Milton died of kidney failure on 8 November 1674 and was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate; according to an early biographer, his funeral was attended by “his learned and great Friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the Vulgar.”
Paradise Lost
Main article: Paradise Lost
Milton’s magnum opus, the blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost, which appeared in a quarto edition in 1667, was composed by the blind Milton from 1658-1664. It reflects his personal despair at the failure of the Revolution, yet affirms an ultimate optimism in human potential. Milton encoded many references to his unyielding support for the “Good Old Cause.” Though Milton notoriously sold the copyright of this monumental work to his publisher for a seemingly trifling £10, this was not a particularly outlandish deal at the time. Milton followed up Paradise Lost with its sequel, Paradise Regained, published alongside the tragedy Samson Agonistes, in 1671. Both these works also resonate with Milton’s post-Restoration political situation. Just before his death in 1674, Milton supervised the release of a second edition of Paradise Lost, accompanied by an explanation of “why the poem rhymes not” and prefatory verses by Marvell. Milton republished his 1645 Poems in 1673, as well a collection of his letters and the Latin prolusions from his Cambridge days. A 1668 edition of Paradise Lost, reported to have been Milton's personal copy, is now housed in the archives of the University of Western Ontario.
During the Restoration Milton also published several minor prose works, such as a grammar textbook, his Art of Logic, and his History of Britain. His only explicitly political tracts were the 1672 Of True Religion, arguing for toleration (except for Catholics), and a translation of a Polish tract advocating an elective monarchy. Both these works participated in the Exclusion debate that would preoccupy politics in the 1670s and 80s and precipitate the formation of the Whig party and the Glorious Revolution. Milton's unfinished religious manifesto, De doctrina christiana, in which he laid out many of his heretical views, was not discovered and published until 1823.
Philosophical, political, and religious views
In all of his strongly held opinions, Milton can generally be called a "party of one" for going well beyond the orthodoxy of the time. Milton's idiosyncratic beliefs stemmed from the Puritan mandate emphasis on the centrality and inviolability of conscience.
Philosophy
By the late 1650s, Milton was a proponent of monism or animist materialism, the notion that a single material substance which is "animate, self-active, and free" composes everything in the universe: from stones and trees and bodies to minds, souls, angels, and God. Milton devised this position to avoid the mind-body dualism of Plato and Descartes as well as the mechanistic determinism of Hobbes. Milton's monism is most notably reflected in Paradise Lost when he has angels eat (5.433-39) and have sex (8.622-29).
Politics
Milton's fervent commitment to republicanism in an age of absolute monarchies was both unpopular and dangerous. In coming centuries, Milton would be claimed as an early apostle of liberalism.
Religion
Milton was writing at a time of religious and political flux in England. His poetry and prose reflect deep convictions, often reacting to contemporary circumstances, but it is not always easy to locate the writer in any obvious religious category. His views may be described as broadly Protestant. As an accomplished artist and an official in the government of Oliver Cromwell, it is not always easy to distinguish where artistic licence and polemical intent overshadow Milton's personal views.
Milton embraced many theological views that put him outside of contemporary Christianity. A prime example is Milton's rejection of the Trinity in the belief that the Son was subordinate to the Father, a position known as Arianism; and his probable sympathy with Socinianism (modern-day Unitarianism), which held that Jesus was not divine. Another controversial view Milton subscribed to, illustrated by Paradise Lost, is mortalism, the belief that the soul dies with the body. Milton abandoned his campaign to legitimize divorce after 1645, but he expressed support for polygamy in the De doctrina christiana, the unpublished theological treatise that provides evidence for his heretical views.
Like many Renaissance artists before him, Milton integrated Christian theology into classical modes. In his early poems, the poet narrator express a tension between vice and virtue, the latter invariably related to Protestantism. In Comus Milton may make ironic use of the Caroline court masque by elevating notions of purity and virtue over the conventions of court revelry and superstition. In his later poems, Milton's theological concerns become more explicit. In his 1641 treatise, Of Reformation, Milton expressed his dislike for Catholicism and episcopacy, presenting Rome as a modern Babylon, and bishops as Egyptian taskmasters. These analogies conform to Milton's puritanical preference for Old Testament imagery. Through the Interregnum, Milton often presents England, rescued from the trappings of a worldly monarchy, as an elect nation akin to the Old Testament Israel, and shows its leader, Oliver Cromwell, as a latter-day Moses. These views were bound up in Protestant views of the Millennium, which some sects, such as the Fifth Monarchists predicted would arrive in England. The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 began a new phase in Milton's work. In Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes Milton mourns the end of the godly Commonwealth. The Garden of Eden allegory reflects Milton's view of England's recent Fall from Grace, while Samson's blindness and captivity – mirroring Milton's own failing sight – is a metaphor for England's blind acceptance of Charles II as king. However, despite the Restoration of the monarchy Milton did not lose his own faith; Samson shows how the loss of national salvation did not necessarily preclude the salvation of the individual, while Paradise Regained expresses Milton's continuing belief in the promise of Christian salvation through Jesus Christ.
Though he may have maintained his personal faith in spite of the defeats suffered by his cause, the Dictionary of National Biography recounts how he had been alienated from the Church of England by Archbishop William Laud, and then moved similarly from the Dissenters by their denunciation of religious tolerance in England. "Milton had come to stand apart from all sects, though apparently finding the Quakers most congenial. He never went to any religious services in his later years. When a servant brought back accounts of sermons from nonconformist meetings, Milton became so sarcastic that the man at last gave up his place".
Legacy and influence
Milton's literary career cast a formidable shadow over English poetry in the 18th and 19th centuries; he was often judged equal or superior to all other English poets, including Shakespeare. We can point to Lucy Hutchinson's epic poem about the fall of Humanity, Order and Disorder (1679), and John Dryden's The State of Innocence and the Fall of Man: an Opera (1677) as evidence of an immediate cultural influence.
The influence of Milton's poetry and personality on the literature of the Romantic era was profound: the relationship is a quintessential example of Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence." William Wordsworth began his sonnet "London, 1802" with "Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour" and modeled The Prelude, his own blank verse epic, on Paradise Lost. John Keats found the yoke of Milton's style debilitating; he exclaimed that "Miltonic verse cannot be written but in an artful or rather artist's humour." Keats felt that Paradise Lost was a "beautiful and grand curiosity," but his own unfinished attempt at epic poetry, Hyperion, is said to have suffered from Keats's failed attempt to cultivate a distinct epic voice. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein draws heavily on Paradise Lost. The novel begins with a quotation from Paradise Lost, and the relationship between the Creature and Frankenstein is often seen as a metaphor for the relationship between God and Adam in Paradise Lost.
The Victorian age witnessed a continuation of Milton's influence; George Eliot and Thomas Hardy being particularly inspired by Milton's poetry and biography. By contrast, the early 20th century, owing to the critical efforts of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, witnessed a reduction in Milton's stature.
Aside from his importance to literary history, Milton's career has influenced the modern world in other ways. Milton coined many words that are now familiar; in Paradise Lost readers were confronted by neologisms like dreary, pandæmonium, acclaim, rebuff, self-esteem, unaided, impassive, enslaved, jubilant, serried, solaced, and satanic.
In the political arena, Milton's Areopagitica and republican writings were consulted during the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America. Also, the quotation from Areopagitica – "A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life" – is seen in many public libraries, including the New York Public Library.
The John Milton Society for the Blind was founded in 1928 by Helen Keller to develop an interdenominational ministry that would bring spiritual guidance and religious literature to deaf and blind persons.
See also
Robert Overton
Milton's Cottage
Poetic and dramatic works
L'Allegro (1631)
Il Penseroso (1633)
Comus (a masque)(1634)
Lycidas (1638)
Poems of Mr John Milton, Both English and Latin (1645)
Paradise Lost (1667)
Paradise Regained (1671)
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Poems, &c, Upon Several Occasions (1673)
Political, philosophical and religious prose
Of Reformation (1641)
Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641)
Animadversions (1641)
The Reason of Church Government (1642)
Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
Judgement of Martin Bucer Concerning Divorce (1644)
Of Education (1644)
Areopagitica (1644)
Tetrachordon (1645)
Colasterion (1645)
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)
Eikonoklastes (1649)
Defensio pro Populo Anglicano [First Defense] (1651)
Defensio Secunda [Second Defense] (1654)
A treatise of Civil Power (1659)
The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings from the Church (1659)
The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660)
Brief Notes Upon a Late Sermon (1660)
Accedence Commenced Grammar (1669)
History of Britain (1670)
Artis logicae plenior institutio [Art of Logic] (1672)
Of True Religion (1673)
Epistolae Familiaries (1674)
Prolusiones (1674)
A brief History of Moscovia, and other less known Countries lying Eastward of Russia as far as Cathay, gathered from the writings of several Eye-witnesses (1682)
De doctrina christiana (1823)
Trivia
Singer/Songwriter Tom Milton from the Punk Rock band Super Games is a direct descendant of John Milton.
Al Pacino's character in the movie The Devil's Advocate is named John Milton. In the movie Milton is Satan, in the guise of a lawyer.
References
^ “Annual Lecture on a Master Mind: Milton,” Proceedings of the British Academy 33 (1947): p. 63.
^ David Masson, The Life of John Milton and History of His Time, vol. 1 (Cambridge: 1859), pp. v-vi.
^ for map, see http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/6372.php
^ Barbara K. Lewalski,The Life of John Milton (Oxford: Blackwells Publishers, 2003), p.3.
^ Robert H. Pfeiffer, "The Teaching of Hebrew in Colonial America" The Jewish Quarterly Review, (April 1955), pp. 363-373, accessed through JSTOR
^ John Milton, Complete Prose Works, vol. I gen. Ed. Don M. Wolfe, 8 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), pp. 887-8.
^ Lewalski, Life of Milton, p. 103.
^ Milton, Complete Prose Works, vol. IV, ed.Wolfe, pp. 618-9.
^ John Toland, Life of Milton (1698), in Helen Darbishere, ed., The Early Lives of Milton (London: Constable, 1932), p. 193.
^ Christopher Hill, Milton and the English Revolution (New York: Viking 1977).
^ A.N. Wilson, The Life of John Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 241-42.
^ See, for instance, Barker, Arthur. Milton and the Puritan Dilemma, 1641-1660. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1942: 338 and passim; Wolfe, Don M. Milton in the Puritan Revolution. New York: T. Nelson and Sons, 1941: 19.
^ Stephen Fallon, Milton Among the Philosophers (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 81.
^ Milton and Republicanism, ed. David Armitage, Armand Himy, and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
^ John Rogers, The Matter of Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. xi.
^ John Milton, The Christian Doctrine in Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Hughes (Hackett: Indianapolis, 2003), pp. 994-1000; Leo Miller, John Milton among the Polygamophiles (New York: Loewenthal Press, 1974)
^ Nardo, Anna, K. George Eliot’s Dialogue with Milton