John Milton 1608-1674

John Milton is the most important poet of the Puritan Age. He was born in London in a
middle-class family. He studied and wrote poetry in Latin, Greek, Italian and English. He
travelled across Europe and he visited mainly France and Italy where he met Galileo
Galilei. During the Civil war he was on the side of the puritans. He supported Cromwell,
but he also supported the liberty of the press which the puritans forbade (sosteneva la
libertà di stampa che i puritani invece proibivano). In 1642 Milton married Mary Powell,
but after only 6 months she left him and returned to live with her mother. He wanted to
divorce in order to marry another woman, but the legal status of England did not allow him
to apply for a divorce. This situation motivated him towards writing on the topic of divorce
and pursuing a reform of the English divorce laws. He began writing a series of divorce
traits, one of them is called Discipline and Doctrine of Divorce. In this trait, he
affirmed the rightness of divorce based on the incompatibility of character between man
and wife (è giusto divorziare a causa dell’incompatibilità tra caratteri).
His works can be divided according to the three main periods of his life:
-an initial period devoted to study
-a second period in which he was actively engaged in politics
-a final period in which, completely blind, he retired from public life

The first period saw the creation of some Italian poems, like ‘L’Allegro e il Penseroso’, as
well as some Latin and English poems. He also wrote Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio,
an apology in which he supported the execution of Charles I and supported Cromwell: he
thought that Charles execution was the only solution.
Another important work was Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which he illustrated
the idea that kings and magistrates have to follow the needs of the citizens. Whenever a
king or a magistrate does not act for the welfare of his citizens but for their personal
interests, the people should rebel and depose the king or the magistrate or, in extreme
cases, kill him.
In the second period Milton wrote numerous political pamphlets and prose works
defending religious, civil and domestic liberties, freedom of the press, Parliament and
divorce. He wrote among other works Discipline and Doctrine of Divorce (già citato prima)
and Aereopagitica (questo lo vuole sapere - in Ancient Greece, Aereopago was a public
square where anyone could go and talk about anything they wanted and people who were
there would listen and discuss). In Aereopagitica he defended the freedom of speech
against puritans who had imposed censorship (la censura). Milton was convinced that the
truth could be achieved only through open discussion of ideas and he thought that only
tyrannies used censorship.
When Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, Milton was appointed Secretary for Foreign
Languages of Commonwealth, but when Cromwell died the puritan power ended and the
monarchy was restored: Milton was forced to hide, but then he was arrested. It was in this
period that he started to lose his sight (and he wrote his famous sonnet ‘on his blindness).