An expansive biography of John Milton, including an assessment of his poetry and prose and an account of the ways in which he has been presented over the past three and a half centurieswritten by a leading scholar in the field

It is hard to overstate the role that John Milton played in the historical, political and literary controversies of seventeenth century England; his writings and very life challenged the status quo. Living through one of the most tumultuous periods in British history, Milton was involved at every turn. Struggling to reconcile his private beliefs with his involvement with a radical political experiment, a republic which involved the killing of the monarch, his star rose and fell several times during his life. Married three times, struck blind at a cruelly early age, he was a famed pamphleteer and political activist whose revolutionary political credos placed him in mortal danger after the Restoration. Miltons varied life makes for fascinating reading but it also produced some of the most important poetry in the English language.Paradise Lost, the only poem in English recognized as an epic, challenged conventional thinking on widespread topics from religion and gender equality to the fundamental question of why we behave as we do.

This fascinating new biography is divided into two parts. The first separates the man from the myth, and elucidates the complicated details of Miltons life from his early years as a literary artist uncertain of his destiny, through his work as a propagandist for the Cromwellian republic, to his rewriting of the Old Testament story of the Fall as a poetic allegory of more recent history. The second looks at how biographers and critics from the seventeenth century to the present day have distorted and manipulated the personality of Milton to suit their biases. Balancing accessibility with academic rigor, this volume:Examines the significant aspects of Miltons life and work, including his poetry and prose, his government writings, his travels, and his final yearsExplores Miltons Protestant and republican influences inParadise Lost, Paradise Regained, and his other literary worksHighlights the differences and similarities between Miltons poetry and political proseFollows the history of biographical and critical presentations of Milton from the seventeenth century onwards, including his adoption as a hero of Romanticism and his survival in the twentieth century as, allegedly, a sceptical humanistAddresses modern critiques of Milton in Marxism, Feminism, and other branches of Theory

The Life of the Author: John Milton. Poet and Revolutionary is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students, university lecturers, and academic researchers in relevant fields, particularly seventeenth century poetry and history, as well as literary biography and the history of criticism.

Richard Bradford is Research Professor of English, University of Ulster, UK, and Visiting Professor, Avignon University, France. He has held academic posts at Oxford University, the University of Wales, and Trinity College, Dublin. His 36 books include 10 literary biographies, most recently on Hemingway, Orwell and Patricia Highsmith. His specialised volumes cover topics such as eighteenth century criticism, the history of English poetry, the contemporary novel, literary aesthetics, stylistics, and literary theory. He is Director of the Ulster Literary Biography Research Centre and General Editor of this The Life of the Author series.

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

Part One Life3

1 The City of London 5

2 Cambridge 15

3 Preparation 28

4 Travels 42

5 The Civil War 48

6 The Cromwellian Republic 69

7 The Restoration 98

8 Paradise Lost 104

9 Miltons Last Years and Paradise Regained 130

Part Two Lives After Death139

10 The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 141

11 The Romantics and the Victorians 147

12 The Twentieth Century 157

13 Critical Theory 167

Abbreviations and Referencing 198

Bibliography 199

Index 206