Paradise Lost was written by John Milton, who was born in London, Dec. 9,
1608, and died Nov. 8, 1674. After leaving college, he spent five years in
study at home, during which time he wrote L'Allegro, Il Penseroso,
Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas. In 1638 he travelled on the continent and in
Italy, where he met Galileo. He hastened home in 1639 on account of the
political disturbances in England, and espousing the Puritan cause,
devoted the next twenty years of his life to the writing of pamphlets in
its defence. In 1649 he was appointed Latin Secretary under Cromwell. In
1652 he lost his sight in consequence of overwork. At the age of
twenty-nine, Milton had decided to make an epic poem his life work, and
had noted many historical subjects. By 1641 he had decided on a Biblical
subject. He had probably conceived Paradise Lost at the age of thirty-two,
although the poem was not composed until he was over fifty. It was written
after his blindness and dictated in small portions to various persons, the
work being collected and revised by Milton and Aubrey Phillips. It was
completed, according to the authority of Phillips, in 1663, but on account
of the Plague and the Great Fire, it was not published until 1667.
Paradise Lost is divided into twelve books and is written, to use Milton's
own words, "In English heroic verse without rhyme, as that of Homer in
Greek and of Virgil in Latin, rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true
ornament of poem or good verse."
Paradise Lost was neglected until the time of the Whig supremacy in
England. In 1688 Lord Somers, the Whig leader, published an _édition de
luxe_ of the poem; Addison's papers on it, in 1712, increased its
popularity, and through the influence of the Whigs a bust of the poet was
placed in Westminster Abbey in 1737.
There is no better proof of the greatness of Paradise Lost than the way in
which it has survived hostile criticism. It has been criticised for the
lengthy conversations and "arguments" of its characters; for its
materialization of the Divine Being; because of its subject; because of
Milton's vagueness of description of things awesome and terrible, in
comparison with Dante's minute descriptions. But the earnest spirit in
which it was conceived and written; the subject, giving it a "higher
argument" than any merely national epic, even though many of Milton's, and
his age's, special beliefs are things of the past, and its lofty and
poetical style, have rendered unassailable its rank among the noblest of
the epics.