Milton's major literary works

 

Write a short note on Milton's major literary works.

Ans. While still a student at Cambridge University (from 1625 - 1632) Milton wrote poems in Latin, Italian, and English: these included L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, both published later in Poems (1645). During 1632 - 1638 he engaged in private study, and wrote Comus (1637), a masque, and the extraordinary elegy Lycidas (1638), and toured Italy. He spent much of 1641-60, pamphleteering for civil and religious liberty, and serving in Cromwell's government. His best-known prose is in the pamphlets Areopagitica f (1644) on the freedom of the press, and Of Education (1644). Paradise Lost was published in 1667. It is an epic poem in blank verse, in which he uses his sublime "grand style" with superb power. Its topic is the Fall of Man. Paradise Regained was published in s 1671. It is also an epic in which he shows how Christ overcomes Satan, the tempter. His tragedy Samson Agonistes was published also in 1671. He shows how an Old Testament figure, Samson conquers self-pity and despair to become God's champion. He is considered second only to William Shakespeare in the history of English language poetry.