While once considered dangerously radical and heretical, Milton contributed to a seismic shift in accepted public opinions during his life that ultimately elevated him to public office in England.
In his early years, Milton studied at Christ's College at the University of Cambridge, one of the world's most prestigious universities, and then travelled, wrote poetry mostly for private circulation, and launched a career as pamphleteer and publicist under Charles I's increasingly autocratic rule and Britain's breakdown into constitutional confusion and ultimately civil war. Phases of Milton's life parallel the major historical and political divisions in Stuart England at the time. Milton was revered by poets such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Hardy. Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a poem which.with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind", though he (a Tory) described Milton's politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly republican". Milton is described as the "greatest English author" by biographer William Hayley, and he remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers in the English language", though critical reception has oscillated in the centuries since his death often on account of his republicanism. He was the first modern writer to employ unrhymed verse outside of the theatre or translations. His desire for freedom extended beyond his philosophy and was reflected in his style, which included his introduction of new words (coined from Latin and Ancient Greek) to the English language. Milton achieved fame and recognition during his lifetime his celebrated Areopagitica (1644), written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. He also served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. Paradise Lost elevated Milton's reputation as one of history's greatest poets. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and God's expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden.
His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval.
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual.
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