JOHN MILTON: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES
Americans tend to forget that they weren't the first to have a
revolution. The English had theirs more than 130 years before the
Thirteen Colonies rebelled. The English revolution consisted of a
bloody Civil War from 1642 to 1649, the beheading of King Charles I
in January 1649, and ten years of Puritan republican rule; it ended
finally with the restoration of the monarchy under King Charles II in
1660.
These events aren't merely the background to John Milton's life:
they were his life. We usually think of the war as a conflict
between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads. John Milton was a
Roundhead. The Cavaliers, or Royalists, supported the king and
tended toward Catholicism. They believed in an aristocracy that had
the right to special privileges, both in politics and in religion.
The Roundheads, or Puritans, believed in a wider distribution of
political and economic power and the right of every man to enjoy
direct access to God.
Milton was so strongly committed to the Puritan cause that he
accepted a government position under Oliver Cromwell, who ruled as
Lord Protector from 1649 to 1658. Milton was a radical Christian
individualist who objected strongly and vocally to all kinds of
organized religions which, he believed, put barriers between man and
God.
Milton was therefore a rebel because he identified himself with a
revolutionary cause. Paradise Lost, his masterpiece, is about
rebellion and its consequences.
One way of looking at the poem is to see it as Milton's working out
of his own position. Although many readers have thought that Milton
is really Satan, he probably saw himself as Abdiel, the angel who
refuses to go along with Satan. Milton was arrogant in his belief
that he understood the truth and had a duty to explain it for
everyone's good.
The revolution he lived through changed every aspect of English life.
When he was born in 1608, Shakespeare was still alive and Queen
Elizabeth was only five years dead. Her influence was still felt.
She had been an absolute monarch who regarded Parliament as a
necessary evil in order to get money for her projects. When Milton
died in 1674, Charles II reigned as constitutional monarch without
any real power except that granted to him by Parliament.
Milton's circumstances changed drastically during his life. His
family was reasonably well-to-do. They lived in London, which was
Milton's home for most of his life. His father was a scrivener, a
sort of combined notary and banker, who was wealthy enough to afford
