John Milton was born in London in 1608, the son of a scrivener who also composed music—a fact that's important because it meant Milton grew up in a household that valued language and art from the very beginning. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and spent several years afterward devouring books at his father's estate in Horton, essentially giving himself a private graduate education before he had produced any lasting works.
In the late 1630s, he traveled to Italy, where he met Galileo—who was under house arrest at the time—and returned to England just as the country was heading toward civil war. Milton became deeply involved in the political struggle on the Puritan side, writing pamphlets and polemics on a range of topics from church governance to divorce law. He was a true radical for his era and was committed to his beliefs. After Charles I was executed and the Commonwealth of England was established, Milton served as a civil servant under the Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell, acting as an official Latin secretary for foreign correspondence.
“This work ultimately cost him his eyesight.”
By 1652, he was completely blind, likely due to glaucoma. From then on, he dictated everything, relying on his daughters and other assistants to write down his words. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, he faced brief imprisonment and saw his books burned. He managed to survive, largely thanks to the support of friends like the poet Andrew Marvell.
It was during this time of political loss and physical darkness that he created his greatest work. *Paradise Lost*, published in 1667, is an epic poem in twelve books that recounts Satan's rebellion against God and the fall of Adam and Eve. Milton wrote it in unrhymed iambic pentameter—blank verse—when rhyme was popular, and he was intentional about this choice, calling rhyme "the invention of a barbarous age." The poem is monumental in its ambition: Milton aimed to "justify the ways of God to men," and the result has intrigued readers for centuries, in part because of how compelling Satan is as a character.
