Author: MILTON, John
Biography:
MILTON, John (1608-74: ODNB)
John Milton, poet and polemicist, is a “prior” author included here because of new translations of his poems in Latin and Italian. Two of the three translators, John Langhorne and William Cowper (qq.v.), have headnotes of their own. Jacob George Strutt (1784-1867) is the exception. His family must have been related to that of Joseph Strutt (q.v.), but he and Joseph Strutt, Jr., who was one of the translators of Claudian (q.v.), were not first cousins. Jacob George was born at Colchester, Essex, the son of Caroline (Pollett) and Benjamin Strutt. He became a painter of portraits and landscapes. On 8 Nov. 1813 he married Elizabeth (Frost) Byron (1782-1863), a writer, in London; they had four children. He died at Rome on 4 Mar. 1867 and was buried there. Milton was born in London on 9 Dec. 1608, the third child of Sara (Jeffrey) and John Milton. His father was a musician and composer and an official in the Scriveners’ Company; the son learnt to sing and to play the organ and bass viol. He was educated at St. Paul’s School and Christ’s College, Cambridge (matric. 1625, BA 1629, MA 1632). Milton wrote poetry all his life--in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian--with his earliest collection of Poems . . . English and Latin published in 1645. His first wife, Mary Powell (married 1643), left him early in the marriage but they were reconciled and had two daughters before she died. The second, Katharine Woodcock (1656), died in 1658 as did their infant daughter. The third was Elizabeth Minshull (1663), who outlived him. In 1652 he became completely blind, but he continued to write with the aid of amanuenses. During the Commonwealth he was Secretary for Foreign languages and a powerful spokesman for the ruling council, with the consequence that he was arrested and his life at risk after the Restoration in 1660. He completed Paradise Lost in 1663 but refrained from publication until 1667. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes appeared in 1671, as did a History of Britain. His last publication was the revised second edition of Paradise Lost: the two editions together brought him £10. Milton died on 10 Nov. 1674 and was buried like his father at St. Giles, Cripplegate. (ODNB [Milton, J. G. Strutt, Elizabeth Strutt] 9 Mar. 2025: Orlando 9 Mar. 2025) HJ
Other Names:
- [John] Milton