The Poetry of John Milton

By: John Milton

Narrated by: Richard Mitchley, Ghizela Rowe, Gideon Wagner

Length: 1 hr and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

John Milton married 16-year-old Mary Powell in June 1643 but she left him after only a few months during which he wrote and published several writings on divorce. Mary did return after three years and their life thereafter seemed harmonious. Milton received a hostile response to the divorce tracts and drove him to write Areopagitica, his celebrated attack on pre-printing censorship.

With the parliamentary victory in the Civil War, Milton wrote The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) which defended popular government and implicitly sanctioned the regicide which led to his appointment as Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State.

On 24 February 1652 Milton published his Latin defense of the English People, Defensio Pro Populo Anglicano, also known as the First Defense. Milton's Latin prose and intellectual sweep, quickly gained him a European reputation.

Tragically his first wife, Mary, died on May 5th, 1652 following the birth of their fourth child. The following year Milton had become totally blind, probably due to glaucoma. He then had to dictate his verse and prose to helpers, one of whom was the poet Andrew Marvell.

He married again to Katherine Woodcock but she died in February 1658, less than four months after giving birth to a daughter, who also tragically died.

Though Cromwell’s death in 1658 caused the English Republic to collapse Milton stubbornly clung to his beliefs and in 1659 he published A Treatise of Civil Power, attacking the concept of a state-dominated church. Upon the Restoration in May 1660, Milton went into hiding for his life. An arrest warrant was issued and his writings burnt. He re-emerged after a general pardon was issued, but was nevertheless arrested and briefly imprisoned before influential friends, such as Marvell, now an MP, intervened.

His third marriage was to Elizabeth Mynshull. Despite a 31-year age gap, the marriage seemed happy and Milton spent the remaining decade of his life living quietly in London, apart from a short spell in Chalfont St. Giles, during the Great Plague of London.

Milton was to now publish his greatest works, which had been gestating for many years. Paradise Lost, perhaps the classic English epic poem, was originally published in 10 books in 1667. This was followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes in 1671. Because of his anti-monarchy views their reception was muted, but over the centuries since, Milton has established himself as second only to Shakespeare. He died of kidney failure on November 8th, 1674, and was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate.

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