Poetical Works: Volume 2. Paradise Regain'd; Samson Agonistes; Poems Upon Several Occasions, Both English and Latin

Front Cover
Clarendon Press, 2000 - 392 pages
Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

From inside the book

Contents

SAMSON AGONISTES
59
POEMS published in 1645 1673 c
114
O Nightingale that on yon bloomy Spray
146
Lycidas
163
A Mask Presented at LudlowCastle 1634
171
Psalms IVIII Done into Verse 1653
204
Psalms LXXXLXXXVIII Done into Metre 1648
211
Verses translated in the Prose Works
226
Elegiarum Liber
236
Sylvarum Liber
257
Mansus
274
TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS
289
and the Poems published in 1645 and 1673
373
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

John Milton, English scholar and classical poet, is one of the major figures of Western literature. He was born in 1608 into a prosperous London family. By the age of 17, he was proficient in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Milton attended Cambridge University, earning a B.A. and an M.A. before secluding himself for five years to read, write and study on his own. It is believed that Milton read everything that had been published in Latin, Greek, and English. He was considered one of the most educated men of his time. Milton also had a reputation as a radical. After his own wife left him early in their marriage, Milton published an unpopular treatise supporting divorce in the case of incompatibility. Milton was also a vocal supporter of Oliver Cromwell and worked for him. Milton's first work, Lycidas, an elegy on the death of a classmate, was published in 1632, and he had numerous works published in the ensuing years, including Pastoral and Areopagitica. His Christian epic poem, Paradise Lost, which traced humanity's fall from divine grace, appeared in 1667, assuring his place as one of the finest non-dramatic poet of the Renaissance Age. Milton went blind at the age of 43 from the incredible strain he placed on his eyes. Amazingly, Paradise Lost and his other major works, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, were composed after the lost of his sight. These major works were painstakingly and slowly dictated to secretaries. John Milton died in 1674.

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