III.

Works

John Milton's work is marked by cosmic themes and lofty religious idealism; it reveals an astonishing breadth of learning and command of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew classics. His blank verse is of remarkable variety and richness, so skilfully modulated and flexible that it has been compared to organ tones.

Milton's career as a writer may be divided into three periods. The first, from 1625 to 1640, was the period of such early works as the poems written while he was still at Cambridge, the ode “On the Morning of Christ's Nativity” (1629), the sonnet “On Shakespeare” (1630), “L'Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” (both probably 1631), “On Time” (c. 1632), “At a Solemn Musick” (1632-c. 1633), the masques Arcades (1632-c. 1634) and Comus (1634), and Lycidas (1637), a passionate pastoral elegy for Milton's fellow student at Christ's College, Edward King, who drowned in the Irish Sea. Lycidas dwells on the fear of premature death and unfulfilled ambition (“For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime/ Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:/ Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew/ Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme./ He must not float upon his watery bier/ Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,/ Without the meed of some melodious tear”).

These works show a growing mastery of stanza and structure, and the use of archaisms, dense imagery, and proper names to be found in his later works. Stanza xxiv of “On the Morning of Christ's Nativity”, for example, reads:

His second period, from 1640 to 1660, was devoted chiefly to the writing of the prose tracts that established him as the most able pamphleteer of his time. In the first group of pamphlets, Milton attacked the institution of bishops and argued in favour of extending the spirit of the English Reformation. The first published of this group was Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England (1641); the one most deeply pondered and elaborately reasoned was The Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelaty (1641-1642), in which he denounced the “impertinent yoke of prelaty, under whose inquisitorious and tyrannical duncery no free and splendid wit can flourish” and which also contains an important digression in which Milton tells of his own early life, education, and ambitions. (Such autobiographical digressions are found scattered throughout his prose works.)

The second phase of his devotion to social and political concerns yielded, among others, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), in which he argued that since marriage was instituted for intellectual as well as physical companionship, divorce should be granted for incompatibility; and his most famous prose work, Areopagitica (1644), an impassioned plea for freedom of the press, in which he demands “the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”. In Of Education (1644) Milton advocated an education combining classical instruction, to prepare the student for government service, with religious training. The third group of pamphlets includes those Milton wrote to justify the execution of Charles I. The first of these, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649), deals with constitutional questions and particularly with the rights of the people against tyrants: “No man”, he wrote, “who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.” In the final group of tracts, including A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes (1659), Milton gave practical suggestions for government reform and argued against a professional clergy and in favour of allowing people to interpret Scripture according to their own conscience.

During his years as a prose writer and government servant, Milton composed part of his great epic poem Paradise Lost and 17 sonnets, among which are some of the most notable in the English language, including “On His Deceased Wife” (1658) and the famous “On His Blindness” (c. 1652-1655).

The apogee of Milton's poetic career was reached in his third period, from 1660 to 1674, during which he completed Paradise Lost (1667) and composed the companion epic Paradise Regained (1671) and the poetic drama Samson Agonistes (1671).

Paradise Lost is considered Milton's masterpiece and one of the greatest poems in world literature. In its 12 books he tells the story of the Fall of Adam in a context of cosmic drama and profound speculations. The poet's announced aim was to “justifie the ways of God to men”. The poem was written with soaring imagination and far-ranging intellectual grasp in his most forceful and exalted style. Paradise Regained, which tells of human salvation through Christ, is a shorter and lesser work, although still one of great richness and strength. In Samson Agonistes, a tragedy on the Greek model composed partly in blank verse and partly in unrhymed choric verse of varied line length, Milton employed the Old Testament story of Samson to inspire the defeated English Puritans with the courage to triumph through sacrifice.