John Milton

John Milton (1608–1674) was an English poet and republican polemicist, remembered above all for the epic Paradise Lost. At Christ's College, Cambridge, his fair complexion earned him the nickname the Lady of Christ's College. Before the Civil War he wrote pamphlets against bishops. When his young wife left him in 1642 he published divorce tracts; the outcry prompted Areopagitica (1644), against censorship.

After the regicide he defended the people's right to call rulers to account, and in 1649 became Secretary for Foreign Tongues, handling the Commonwealth's Latin letters. By 1652 he was totally blind, dictating to helpers. His writings against the 1660 Restoration led to arrest, imprisonment and the burning of his books.

In retirement he dictated Paradise Lost (1667), on Adam and Eve's temptation and fall, followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes (1671). He died in November 1674, poor and marginal but famous across Europe.