John milton biography summary format

John Milton is best known for Paradise Lost , widely regarded as the greatest epic poem in English. Together with Paradise Regained , it formed his reputation as one of the greatest English writers. In his prose works he advocated the abolition of the Church of England. His influence extended through the English civil wars and also to the American and French revolutions.

He had an older sister Anne, and a younger brother Christopher, and several siblings who died before reaching adulthood.

John milton achievements

As a child, John Milton attended St. After Cambridge, Milton spent six years living with his family in Buckinghamshire and studying independently. In , John Milton went to Europe, where he probably met the astronomer Galileo , who was under house arrest at the time. He returned to England earlier than he had planned because of the impending civil war there.

Milton was a Puritan who believed in the authority of the Bible, and opposed religious institutions like the Church of England, and the monarchy, with which it was entwined. He wrote pamphlets on radical topics like freedom of the press, supported Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War, and was probably present at the beheading of Charles I.

It was during these years that Milton married for the first time.