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An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet W. Shakespeare
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6829 hits)
An Epitaph On The Marchioness Of Winchester
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6270 hits)
Another On The Same
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Comus
: Poetry 2010-04-26 (9986 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book I
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (7681 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book II
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (7691 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book III
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6292 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book IV
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6853 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book IX
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6771 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book V
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6486 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book VI
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6778 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book VII
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (7079 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book VIII
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6600 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book X
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (7211 hits)
PARADISE LOST -- Book XII
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6632 hits)
PARADISE LOST --Book XI
: Poetry 2005-08-29 (6656 hits)
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
: Poetry 2005-06-13 (9029 hits)
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Biography John Milton
1608 - 1674
One of the greatest poets of the English language, best-known for his epic poem PARADISE LOST (1667). Milton's powerful, rhetoric prose and the eloquence of his poetry had an immense influence especially on the 18th-century verse. Besides poems, Milton published pamphlets defending civil and religious rights.
John Milton was born in London. His mother Sarah Jeffrey, a very religious person, was the daughter of a merchant sailor. His father, also named John, had risen to prosperity as a scrivener or law writer - he also composed music. The family was wealthy enough to afford a second house in the country. Milton's first teachers were his father, from whom he inherited love for art and music, and the writer Thomas Young, a graduate of St Andrews University. At the age of twelve Milton was admitted to St Paul's School near his home and five years later he entered Christ's College, Cambridge. During this period, while considering himself destined for the ministry, he began to write poetry in Latin, Italian, and English. One of Milton'e earliest works, 'On the Death of a Fair Infant' (1626), was written after his sister Anne Phillips has suffered from a miscarriage.
Paradise Lost is not easy to read with its odd syntax, difficult vocabulary, and complex, noble style. Moreover, its cosmic vision is not actually based on the Copernican system, but more in the traditional Christian cosmology of its day, where the Earth is the center, not the sun. The poem tells a biblical story of Adam and Eve, with God, and Lucifer (Satan), who is thrown out of Heaven to corrupt humankind. Satan, the most beautiful of the angels, is at his most impressive: he wakes up, on a burning lake in Hell, to find himself surrounded by his stunned followers. He has been defeated in the War of Heaven. "All is not lost; th' unconquerable Will, / And study of revenge, immortal hate, / And courage never to submit or yield... /" Milton created a powerful and sympathetic portrait of Lucifer. His character bears similarities with Shakespeare's hero-villains Iago and Macbeth, whose intellectual nihilism is transformed into metaphysical drama
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