John Milton

John Milton (1608–1674) was an English poet and polemicist, born in London, educated at St. Paul's School and Cambridge, who prepared himself for poetry by years of study and a journey to Italy. The Civil War drew him into prose: pamphlets on church government, divorce and education, Areopagitica in defense of a free press, and a justification of the execution of Charles I that made him Latin secretary to Cromwell's council. He went blind in 1652. After the Restoration, in disgrace and in hiding for a time, he dictated Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. His daughters read to him in languages they did not understand.