Milton, John,

About the Author

John Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant, renowned for his profound influence on English literature during the turbulent era of the English Civil War and Commonwealth. Blinded by glaucoma in his later years, Milton dictated his works to amanuenses, showcasing extraordinary resilience and intellectual depth. A staunch supporter of the Puritan cause, he served as Secretary for Foreign Tongues under Oliver Cromwell, advocating for radical ideas on divorce, liberty, and republicanism in his prose treatises. His epic poetry, drawing from classical, biblical, and Renaissance traditions, explores themes of free will, divine justice, and human fallibility with sublime grandeur. Milton's legacy endures through translations and adaptations, including Carl Friedrich von Rosenzweig's German hexameter rendition of Paradise Lost, which captures the original's majestic scope across four volumes published in 1832.