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The reception history of John Milton and his works has been a mixture of positive and negative responses, with his greatest influence being found within his poetry.
Milton's later political works were widely known but were highly controversial and criticized, especially after the Restoration. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates immediately influenced many others, including Bulstrode Whitelocke, John Canne, John Lilburne, John Twyn, and various anonymous works. The amount of attention that the work received prompted John Shawcross to declare that the work, itself, allowed Milton to be viewed as a "great writer". [1] However, the work continued to influence writers later on, including a piece by Algernon Sidney, which copies words directly from The Tenure; many responders to Sidney did not know that the lines were Milton's own. [2]
Eikonoklastes suffered a far different fate; it was able to appeal to a larger audience than many of Milton's previous works and sell well, [3] but it was a failure in turning the public sentiment against Charles I. [4] After the Act of Oblivion was enacted on 29 August 1660, a proclamation by the king demanded that Eikonoklastes and Defensio pro Populo Anglicano be burned. [5] This did not stop the work from selling, and there was a new edition in 1690 after the Glorious Revolution. [6]
The generation of poets following the Restoration were influenced by Milton's poetry, especially Paradise Lost, and viewed it favorably. Alexander Pope, as poet, was heavily influenced by Milton, but he was not as directly attached to the language and concepts within the poetry as other poets, including the English Romantics. [7] However, near the end of his life Pope planned to compose an epic on Brutus, that was to be written in Miltonic blank verse. John Dryden, in an epigram, believed that Milton ranked with Homer and Virgil; but it is uncertain how sincere Dryden was, given that the conventions of the time expected such lofty commendations of individuals. John Dennis praised Milton for composing a poem that was original, and Voltaire teased that France was unable to produce a similarly original epic. [8]
Samuel Johnson criticized Milton for various things: he attacked Milton for archaic language, [9] he blamed Milton for inspiring bad blank verse, [10] and he could not stand Milton's puritan and republican beliefs. [11] Johnson did respect Milton's poetry, and relied on it for many of the quotes contained in his Dictionary of the English Language. [12]
Johnson's contemporaries had mixed views of Milton. Although Handel experienced success by setting Milton's poetry to music, including Il Penseroso , L'Allegro , and Samson Agonistes , he refused to transform Paradise Lost into an oratorio, objecting to the epic's religious content. Likewise, Edward Gibbon questioned Milton's use of God as a character within a poem and Shaftesbury wondered if it was correct to alter Scripture in such a way. [13] Still, many people believed that Paradise Lost equaled the classical epics. [14]
The English Romantic Poets were concerned with Milton's poetry, and they associated themselves with Milton as they sought to explore their own poetic identities. In particular, the various poets relied on images and ideas found in Milton, and they incorporated them into their own works. William Wordsworth, in his The Prelude , relies on Milton's concept of the fall of man in order to revise the myth and to try and overcome the loss of paradise. John Keats, in The Eve of St Agnes , relies on images connected to Paradise Lost and Eve's description. Percy Shelley, in Mont Blanc, relies on Milton's description of sensations, especially smell, to achieve the sublime. [15]
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Kay Stevenson points out that "Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are the seventeenth-century epics which still attract an audience". [16]
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse and including twelve books, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and God's expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost elevated Milton's reputation as one of history's greatest poets. He also served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books with minor revisions throughout. It is considered to be Milton's masterpiece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. The poem concerns the biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Samuel Johnson, often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".
John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including the Republic of Ireland after December 1922.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1667.
British literature is from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. This article covers British literature in the English language. Anglo-Saxon literature is included, and there is some discussion of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature, where literature in these languages relate to the early development of the English language and literature. There is also some brief discussion of major figures who wrote in Scots, but the main discussion is in the various Scottish literature articles.
The "Graveyard Poets", also termed "Churchyard Poets", were a number of pre-Romantic poets of the 18th century characterised by their gloomy meditations on mortality, "skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms" elicited by the presence of the graveyard. Moving beyond the elegy lamenting a single death, their purpose was rarely sensationalist. As the century progressed, "graveyard" poetry increasingly expressed a feeling for the "sublime" and uncanny, and an antiquarian interest in ancient English poetic forms and folk poetry. The "graveyard poets" are often recognized as precursors of the Gothic literary genre, as well as the Romantic movement.
Samuel Wesley was a clergyman of the Church of England, a poet, and a writer. He was the father of John Wesley and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism.
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates is a book by John Milton, in which he defends the right of people to execute a guilty sovereign, whether tyrannical or not.
The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, sometimes subtitled as A Vision instead of a dream, is an epic poem written by the English Romantic John Keats. Although written right after Hyperion, it was published posthumously in 1856. Keats composed The Fall of Hyperion by reworking, expanding, and personally narrating lines from his earlier fragmented epic poem Hyperion.
A Preface to Paradise Lost is one of C. S. Lewis's most famous scholarly works. The book had its genesis in Lewis's Ballard Matthews Lectures, which he delivered at the University College of North Wales in 1941. It discusses the epic poem Paradise Lost, by John Milton.
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English. Despite being set in Scandinavia, it has achieved national epic status in England. However, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. The English spoken after the Normans came is known as Middle English. This form of English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard, a London-based form of English, became widespread. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400), author of The Canterbury Tales, was a significant figure developing the legitimacy of vernacular Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439 also helped to standardise the language, as did the King James Bible (1611), and the Great Vowel Shift.
Eikonoklastes is a book by John Milton, published October 1649. In it he provides a justification for the execution of Charles I, which had taken place on 30 January 1649. The book's title is taken from the Greek, and means "Iconoclast" or "breaker of the icon", and refers to Eikon Basilike, a Royalist propaganda work. The translation of Eikon Basilike is "icon of the King"; it was published immediately after the execution. Milton's book is therefore usually seen as Parliamentarian propaganda, explicitly designed to counter the Royalist arguments.
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity is a nativity ode written by John Milton in 1629 and published in his Poems of Mr. John Milton (1645). The poem describes Christ's Incarnation and his overthrow of earthly and pagan powers. The poem also connects the Incarnation with Christ's Crucifixion.
The Passion is an unfinished ode by John Milton that was possibly written in 1630 and was first published in 1645 or 1646. The poem connects Christ's Crucifixion with his Incarnation. It is linked to two other poems of Milton: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity and Upon the Circumcision
John Milton wrote poetry during the English Renaissance. He was born on 9 December 1608 to John and Sara Milton. Only three of their children survived infancy. Anne was the oldest, John was the middle child, and Christopher was the youngest.
Politics were an important part of John Milton's life. Milton enjoyed little wide-scale early success, either in prose or poetry, until the production of his later, controversial political works starting with The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes.
The poetic style of John Milton, also known as Miltonic verse, Miltonic epic, or Miltonic blank verse, was a highly influential poetic structure popularized by Milton. Although Milton wrote earlier poetry, his influence is largely grounded in his later poems: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Scholars regard the publishing of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in 1798 as probably the beginning of the movement in England, and the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 as its end. Romanticism arrived in other parts of the English-speaking world later; in the United States, about 1820.
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