Block- 4 Milton. Unit- 17, 18, 19
Unit 17 Meg-1 Block-4
Late Renaissance
Milton is often referred to as the last great Renaissance poet. But it does not belong strictly to the Renaissance. main political and social transformations of the period affected his work.
'The Renaissance' is the term commonly used by historians to refer to the period in European history dating from the late fourteenth century in Italy, spreading to other coun$es through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and probably reaching its culmination in seventeenth century England with the work of John Milton.
Classical learning
Reformation:
the upheaval in Christianity that is referred to as the Reformation. This began as a series of attacks on the institution of the Roman Catholic Church and the proliferation of breakaway sects and cults.
the fundamental obsei-vation that the pat11 Lo salvation did not lie through the Church, which stood accused of substantial corruption in its beliefs and its institutional practices, but through the individual's acceptance of and adherence to the Holy Scriptures. Salvation was thus a matter of the individual's direct, unmediated relation to God.
The Emergence of Imperialism
The New Cosmology:
Earth around the sun.
THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
With steeply rising prices and rents and a concomitant fall in real wages. Poverty was widely evident and at a new higll, leading to social unrest and the rapid dissolution of traditional forms of social relations I between classes and ranks.
Charles 1 was executed. Cromwell introduced commonwealth Charles 2 took over again from France but finally Parliament was established as the main authority.
LITERARY AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON POETRY
Much of this writing was in Latin, and writing in English was either largely experimental or translations of Continental writers, at least in poetry.
With the closure of the theatres and the strength of the Puritans, prose in the form of meditations, pamphlets, essays and tracts became a major literary vehicle by the mid I seventeenth century.
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UNIT-18 MILTON’s LIFE
Milton was born in London on December 9,1608.
When his father, John Milton Sr. was disinherited by his Roman Catholic grandfather for turning Protestant, he moved to London and established himself successfully as a notary and moneylender.
pampered life.
He studied at St. Paul's School, London, from some time between 16 15 and 1620 till 1625, when he joined Christ's College, Cambridge. At St. Paul's, he followed the regular curriculum of Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
He went on to Cambridge and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in March 1629 and subsequently his Master of Arts in July 1632.
He was nicknamed 'the Lady' for his fineness of features.
He rejected taking the Church and stated he wanted to become a poet and scholar. This led to financial issues so he stayed with his father for 6 years until he became an established writer.
Milton travelled to Italy, winning some recognition for his early Latin poetry. He also visited the imprisoned astronomer Galileo Galilei, a meeting he considered significant enough to mention in the Areopagitica.
disastrous marriage to Mary Powell in 1642. Mary, half his age, was
the uneducated daughter of a11 Oxfordshire royalist squire who owed his father
money. The incompatibility was evident, and six weeks after the marriage Ma~y went
back to her family, refusing to return to Milton. For Milton the marriage was
obviously a tragic mistake. Mary and Milton were reunited in 1645 by friends. He went on to take in the entire Powell family of ten members for almost a year, when they were impoverished by the civil war. Before Mary died in 1652, Milton had three daughters by her.
By 1649, Milton had been invited by Cromwell to be a secretary for foreign languages to the Council of State. Though it was not a policy making position but , rather a public relations one, in which he was expected to defend and support the I government, Milton accepted it, eager for a more hands on participation in the I politics of his time. As part of this task, he wrote liis first defence of regicide, , Ei@noklastes, in October 1649 and was to follow it wit11 several others.
The success of these was tempered by the realisation of his failing eyesight, which turned to complete blindness by the end of 1652, which was also the same year his wife Mary died.
Despite the blindness, he continued to write the political tracts of defence he was employed to - several of them in Latin, addressing a European audience - although his duties were substantially reduced.
In 1656 he married Katherine Woodcock and had a daughter by her, only to see them both die in 1658
With the return of monarchy, Milton's life was in danger, and he had to go into hiding for some months,
. From 1660 to 1665, Milton concentrated on further study with the aid of his third wife Elizabeth Munshell, whom he married in 1663, and his daughters, who also took the dictation of his magnum opus, Paradise, Lost. It was published finally in 1667,
Milton was already severely ill, he died on 8 November 1674 of gout.
He was not only gifted but aware of his gifts, and willing to hone them through years of reading and writing.
Work - : 'On the Death of a Fair Infant' and 'At a Vacation Exercise', both written in 1628.'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity' (1529-30) 'L'Allegro' and 'I1 Penseroso' (both written in 1631), Comus (1634) and Lycidas (1637), Areopagitica, a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing, to the parliament of England (1644), Doctrine anti Discipline of Divorce (1643) and Of Education (1644), A Treatise on C/zristian Doctrine -1659-60
UNIT - 19:
Milton's poetic and literary life can be broadly divided into three phases:
the early phase of idealistic and artistic concerns;
the middle phase of deep involvement in politics and religion, marked in his work by a dorilinance of prose; and a late poetic phase,
following his blindness, when he dissociated himself froin politics and focused entirely on the writing of the two major epics, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
'On the Death of a Fair Infant'
'On the Death of a Fair Infant', an Elizabethan-style elegy on the death of his baby niece Anne Phillips, is the first of Milton's own English poems in 1628.
In the poem, Milton allegorises the child's death as being at the hands of Winter (personified here as a cold being seeking the warmth of love), who wishes to take her as bride and involuntarily kills her with his touch. The child herself is transformed into a quasi divine being who, in her deal11 arid in hcr boundless innocence, will now serve as medium between a sinful humanity and a wrathful God.
With that consolation, the poet then turns to address the mother in the last stanza, and consoles her with the thought that if she bore this loss in this spirit, she would be rewarded with another child, probably a son, who 'till the world's last-end shall make thy name to live'.
'At a Vacation Exercise:
written in July 1628 he was to affirm his devotion to English, a style free from eccentricity, and exalted themes concerning nature and humanity. It was also the first instance when Milton was to make a public declaration of his poetic ambitions. Tile poem is part of a Latin prose speech that Milton delivered to the festive assembly marking the end of the college year.
MAJOR SOURCES AND INFLUENCES :
Milton even evokes the style and tone of the Bible in his work, especially of the Old Testament with which he was particularly impressed. Biblical motifs and concerns are evident.
Genesis
Homer, Ovid, Virgil, Cicero, Longinus and Horace
Beinbo, Della Casa and Tasso
Shakespeare, Spenser
he remains aloof from the 'metaphysical' fashions of his age
The most remarkable quality of Milton's poetry is the importance of sound, rhythm and music to the fulfillment of meaning in it, a quality that distinguishes his verse more than any other.
Milton contended that adultery might be less valid than incompatibility as the only reason for divorce. He argued that the coercive bond of a loveless marriage was destructive of humans, and therefore as valid if not more valid a reason for divorce. Milton's stand on divorce may have been substantially influenced by his own unhappy marriage.
Block-4 Studying Milton
You can check out my YouTube videos on the same topic where I have explained everything in Hindi in detail. Links are below-
Other Poems of Milton - explained in Hindi on my YouTube channel
More related and helpful links in the description box of my YouTube channel.