John Milton II (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealt
John Milton II (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. 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 an obvious religious category. His views may be described as broadly Protestant, and he was an accomplished, scholarly man of letters, polemical writer and an official in the government of Oliver Cromwell. After his death, Milton became the subject of partisan biographies, such as those by Edward Phillips and John Toland, and a hostile account by Anthony à Wood. Samuel Johnson described him as "an acrimonious and surly republican"; but William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author", at a time when his reputation was particularly in play. 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. One can situate both his poetry and his politics historically. Both sprang from the philosophical and religious beliefs Milton developed from his reading and experience, from student days to the English Revolution. By the time of his death in 1674, Milton was blind, impoverished and yet unrepentant for his political choices. Milton had by then attained Europe-wide fame, and notoriety, for his radical political and religious beliefs, as well as his writings in English and Latin poetry.
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