John Milton

John Milton works can be divided into 3 phases:

Phase 1: When he was a student he wrote poetry in Latin and in 1629 he wrote his first masterpiece, the Ode on the Morning of Christ's nativity(a celebration of the coming of Christ and the abandonment of pagan Gods.

Milton was fascinated by Italian culture. He studied writers like Petrarch, Dante and Tasso and in 1637 he published his greatest minor poem, Lycidas (a pastor elegy).

Phase 2: In the second phase he wrote in prose; in 1643 published The doctrine and Discipline of divorce( in fact he divorced to his old wife ); One of his greatest prose works, Areopagitica, was published in 1644(things to be declared before the Areopagus , a hill in Athens where a respected council met important decisions. In the same year he wrote the Pamphlet of education (promoted the schooling education for the formation of humanistic leaders).

In 1649 he wrote The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which he justified the execution of Charles I; England was criticised by European countries; in reply, Milton wrote Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio and Pro Populo Anglicano Secunda Defensio(defences of People of England).

Phase 3: In 1660 Milton retired from public life and dedicated himself to the writing of his great poetic masterpieces;

He had always wanted to write an epic poem in English in classical style of Virgil's Aeneid, and initially he considered the legend of King Arthur as a subject. After he decided to write Paradise lost; in 1671 Milton published Paradise Regained . For over two hundred years Milton was regarded like on of the greatest writers in the English language.

Historical and Social Background

The vast majority of the population belonged to one of this three religious groups:

Ω The Church  of England (Anglican Protestants)

Ω The Roman Catholic Church(Catholics)

Ω Puritans, Presbyterians and Dissenters(the had very strict moral principles and believed that the way to salvation was hard work)

James I reached a high point during the reign of Charles I, who believed that his acts were answerable only to God.

In 1629 Charles even dissolved Parliament and ruled for eleven years without one. When Charles was forced in 1640 to reopen PARLIAMENT to ask to finance the war in Scotland, Parliament refused to help him:

The Civil war was inevitable.

A Puritan(Roundheads, because they had short hair ) army were under the command of Oliver Cromwell ; the war ended with a Puritan victory and Charles was executed on June 30^th 1649.

Cromwell founded a Republic, know as the Commonwealth; the monarchy and the house of lords were abolished.

On his death in 1658, the English people were happy to welcome back the monarchy in the form of Charles II, who had lived in France in exile; this period is know as the Restoration.

James II came to the throne and wanted to restablish Catholicism as the main religion in the land.

The successor was William III; his victory became knows as Glorious Revolution because he recognize the Constitutional rights of Parliament; The Bill of Rights is an act declaring the rights and liberties of subjects

(everything must approve by the parliament )