John Milton
John Milton, (1608-74). English Puritan poet and prose-writer. His early poems include Lycidas (1637). During the 1640s he devoted himself to controversial writings, on religious and political subjects. Several of his pamphlets were concerned with divorce, which Milton advocated, having separated from his first wife. He also held government offices under Cromwell, despite going blind in 1652. He was arrested at the Restoration but released after a short time. His two best-known works, the epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), based on the Old Testament story of the fall of man, and Samson Agonistes (1671), were dictated to his daughters in retirement.
