JHON MILTON

*[da aggiungere nel riassunto parte della vita]

He was a parliamentarian, he supported Cromwell in the civil war, so when Cromwell became lord
protector, he was appointed foreign language secretary.

So, when the monarchy was restored and King Charles II ascended the throne he had lots of problem,
because he was against the monarchy during the civil war, so he was sent to prison and he lost all his
privileges, all his money and he was helped by his daughter to survive also because in this period he was
already blind. Of course, when you’re blind, your other sense became sharper and so he dedicated his time
and energy to writing his masterpieces: epic poems called paradise lost which has Satan as protagonist, and
paradise regained.

John was a parliamentarian while his wife's father was a royalist so their marriage was doomed. For the
first time in history (three centuries before divorce was legitimized), Milton requests the annulment of his
marriage because he believed that this sacrament was based on sharing, happiness and love, when sharing,
love and fidelity came to to miss, those concerned must be authorized to dissolve the marriage.

Milton’s works are characterized of two aspects: first of all, his general knowledge and culture, he was a
very much learned men in all the languages, in all the classics, but he was also a deeply religious man, a
puritan man, so bible was his guide and these two aspects are actually relevant in his works.

His compositions concerned different topics and we can divide them in three different periods:

1st period, poetic poems, before the civil war:

“LYCIDAS”, a pastoral elegy (1637).

2nd period, during the civil war, politics poems:

“AREOPAGITICA”, a pamphlet (polemical writing in which valid arguments are treated to validate the
thesis, it can concern every type of argument) about the freedom of press (1644). John Milton
wrote this poem because he was against all tyrannies, therefore he was in favor of freedom of the
press. At the time there was censorship so writers weren't free to write anything without being
subjected to censorship;

prose propaganda, which includes

“DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE”, written on the basis of his failed marriage.
John was a parliamentarian while his wife's father was a royalist so their marriage was doomed. In
fact, after just one month her wife left him and went back to his family.
For the first time in history, Milton requests the annulment of his marriage (three centuries before
divorce was legitimized, so he had a very modern mentality) because he believed that this
sacrament was based on sharing, happiness and love, when these qualities came to to miss, those
concerned must be authorized to dissolve the marriage.
Marriage annulment generally did not exist, it was granted only to very influential people for
political reasons, for example Henry VIII;
JHON MILTON

“ON THE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES” written to justify regicide, if a king fails the ideals
he should share with his subjects, he could be executed (it backfires when Charles II returns who
took his revenge on all those who contributed to the death sentence of his father);

“EIKONOKLASTES”: from the Greek “breaking of images”.

3rd period, after the civil war, epic poems:

“PARADISE LOST” (1667) based on the Bible.

Talks about God who send Satan into hell. Satan has rebelled with his rebel angels against God who
is seen as a tyrant and for that reason god expelled him from heaven and send him to hell. Satan in
this poem is seen as a symbol because he represents rebellion against tyranny.
Milton was a rebel too because he had rebelled against King Charles the first, so he had lots of
sympathy for Satan, he felt very close to him because they were both rebels. Satan turns into a
snake so that he can tent other people in heaven.
In the shape of a snake, he tents Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and they are both
expelled from even and sent to earth.

So, Paradise lost is before set in heaven and then in hell. The firmament represents chaos, and then
heart.
In this case we have not the Copernican design to describe the solar system, but the Ptolemaic one,
also called geocentric design, the medieval ideas of the solar system because placed the earth in
the middle of the solar system instead of the sun.;

“PARADISE REGAINED” (1671).

“SAMS AGONISTES”.

 MAIN CHARACTERS

God the Father, God the Son;

Satan, the powerful, proud angel who led an unsuccessful rebellion against God;

Adam and Eve, the first human beings. Adam is a rational character whose main weakness is his infatuation
with Eve;

Rebellious angels, leaders in Satan’s army.

 THEMES

Obedience and rebellion

Paradise Lost tells the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, and describes how and why it happened. It is
also the story of Satan’s rebellion.

Fate and free will

Satan is determined to be free even though the price of this freedom is banishment to Hell. (LIBERO
ARBITRIO)
JHON MILTON

 STYLE

Elevated, perfectly suited to the epic genre and to the theme;

use of blank verse , pentametro giambico (verso composto da cinque piedi, ognuno composto da due
sillabe, di cui una non è accentata e l’altra è accentata) senza rime;

extensive use of enjambments;

use of polysyllabic Latinisms, inversions;

antithesis of light / darkness to depict Heavenand Hell.