life story of John Milton the author and poet

                         

            John Milton was born in 1608 at bread street, London. His father was a lawyer. He was a puritan but he loved music and study. John went to St. Paul’s, a famous school. He went to Christ’s college when he was seventeen.

            After taking his degree he went to little village of Horton in Buckinghamshire, where his father spent the rest of his life. He studied reading poetry, philosophy, music, and languages.

            He became a poet at Horton. He mastered Greek, Latin literature, learned French, Italian, Spanish, and learned theories of science. He was an educated puritan. He traveled to France and Italy to improve his French and Italian. He wanted to go to Greece but the struggle of the puritans prevented him from going to Greece.

            In 1639, he came back and joined the struggle. He helped the struggle not with guns and bullets but with his pen. He did not write poetry for twenty years but he wrote prose. One of the greatest works was Areopagitica defending the freedom of the press.

            In 1649, he became Latin Secretary to Cromwell. He worked so hard. He read and translated letters. He became blind. His doctor had warned him before. He continued his work in his blindness. He wrote poems in his blindness. When Cromwell died, he and other puritan leaders were captured. Charles II, the son of the King of England came back from France.

            He escaped from London to a small cottage in Chalfont St. Giles. It was about twenty miles away from London. His daughter wrote his works. Paradise Lost was one of the greatest poems. It was written from 1658 to 1664 and published in 1667.  Milton died in 1674.

 Here is one of his poems written in Horton. It is from L’Allegro, it tells about the beauty of the English countryside.

 Haste thee, Nymph and bring with the

Jest, and youthful Jollity.

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And laughter holding both his sides.

And in thy right hand lead with thee

The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;

And, If I give thee honour due,

Mirth admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,

In unreproved pleasures free,

To hear the lark begin his flight,

And singing, startle the dull night,

From his watch-tower in the skies,

Till the dappled dawn doth rise;

While the cock, with lively din,

Scatters the rear of darkness thin,

And the stack, at the barn-door,

Stoutly struts his dames before,

Oft listening how the hounds and horn

Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,

From the side of some hoar hill,

 Through the high wood echoing shrill,

Sometime walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,

While the ploughman, near at hand,

Whistles o’er the furrowed land,

And the milkmaid singeth blithe,

And the mower whets his scythe,                      

And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

(Essential English Book IV C.E.Eckersley, Longman,  London 1958)

This is a classic poem that no many people can understand the meaning of the words.

These are definition of the words in the poem but they cannot cover all the meaning.

Blithe : Joyful

Dappled : spotted with light and shade

Deride : make fun

Din : noise

Elm : kind of big tree

Furrow : long line cut the earth by plough

Hawthorn : bush with white, sweet-smelling blossom; used for hedges round fields.

Jest : Joke

Lark : kind of bird

Resource book:  Essential English Book IV C.E.Eckersley, Longman,  London 1958

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