Found a great series of lectures on Milton by John Rogers. He articulates a righteous rebellion. If God was really all powerful would he be begging for you to worship him? Why so much fear about evil? Milton dismisses Satan, but we can see the critique as deeper than the superficial dismissal. Is Milton a dead white man who we shouldn't read any more?
John Milton was born in 1608 (Shakespeare will still be alive till he is 8). He died 1674.
Paradise Lost is the classic he wrote that still is read today. It came out in 1667 when he was 59, second edition in 1674. He was the first modern writer to employ unrhymed verse outside of the theatre or translations. He was blind and impoverished when he composed it 1658 to 1664. He sold the book for £5 (equivalent to approximately £770 in 2015 purchasing power). The first run was a quarto edition priced at three shillings per copy (about £23 in 2015 purchasing power equivalent), published in August 1667, and it sold out in eighteen months.
Milton studied at Christ's College at the University of Cambridge. He studied by himself for 6 years after his masters degree. He traveled in France and Italy and met Galileo and Italian poets. He wrote a book on freedom of speech, and was for abolishing the monarchy. His writings perhaps contributed to the Civil War. Though he didn't need to work, he worked as a private tutor. At 34 he married the 17-year-old Mary Powell. The marriage didn't go well and she returned home for 3 years. He had trouble with authorities, and wrote a tract about pre-publishing censorship. He courted another woman with the surname Davis, but she turned him down. His wife returned and she bore him 4 children. Soon he was a censor, and writing propaganda for the government. The king wanted to come back to England and put out a pro-monarchy tract.
(It's kind of interesting that people are still debating the monarchy in England on the eve of the coronation of King Charles the 3rd May 6th 2023. In my time in England I never heard anyone debating it, but one person I was talking to said it was good for tourism.)
By 1652 Milton had become totally blind. Upon the Stuart Restoration in May 1660, Milton, fearing for his life, went into hiding, while a warrant was issued for his arrest and his writings were burnt. He re-emerged after a general pardon was issued, but was nevertheless arrested and briefly imprisoned before influential friends intervened. He married a second wife in 1653 and she died 5 years later after giving birth to a daughter who also died. He married a 3rd time in 1663 to a 24 year old woman, a 31 year gap. He lived in London and wrote a book on logic, a history of Britain, and poetry.
Links:
Lecture 1 Milton, Power and the Power of Milton
Supposed to read On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, which he wrote at 19.
Lecture 2 The Infant Cry of God
Richard Strier on Milton's Paradise Lost
Of man's first disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
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