JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell.  He is considered one of the preeminent writers in the English language.

Milton wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem PARADISE LOST (1667), written in blank verse.  His poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day.  Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated AREOPAGITICA (1644) -- written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship -- is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press.

* THE ANNOTATED MILTON: Complete English Poems with Annotations, Lexical, Syntactic, Prosodic, and Referential (Bantam Classics, 1999).  Edited by Burton Raffel.

* PARADISE LOST (Modern Library, 2007).  Edited by William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, and Stephen M. Fallon.

* PARADISE LOST (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007).  Edited by Barbara K. Lewalski.

* PARADISE LOST (Oxford University Press, 2005).  Illustrated with an Introduction by Philip Pullman.

* PARADISE LOST: Authoritative Text, Sources and Backgrounds, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition, 2005).  Edited by Gordon Teskey.

* PROSE: Major Writings on Liberty, Politics, Religion, and Education (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).   Edited by David Loewenstein.