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John Milton |
A prodigious linguist and a republican, John Milton became the voice of Cromwell during the overthrow of King Charles, writing with the celestial bombast that later became his poetic style. When Cromwell’s government was itself overthrown, Milton’s estate was seized, his books were burned, and he barely escaped to the country.
He went blind from glaucoma; his second wife (“my late espousèd saint”) died; and he began work on Paradise Lost, composing at night and dictating lines to his assistants in the morning. In his poverty, he was forced to sell the finished poem to his publisher for £5. But with the restoration of Charles II in 1663, Milton married for the third time (he was 55) to a woman half his age (she was 24), and he began writing Paradise Regained
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Immortal Poets: Their Lives and Verse, by Christopher Burns |