John Milton - The visionary poet..
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”. John Milton wrote this verse in 1667, in his immortal poem "Paradise lost" . The other day, I happened to be researching Milton for my work, and my eyes glanced upon this timeless verse by the poet. Over ten thousand lines of blank verse, each sparkling with originality and spontaneous vitality, gushing forth like a torrential river in spate , symbolizing the proverbial "fall" of Man from grace and his possible redemption - this poem is a watershed in the history of theology and literature. Milton was impoverished and virtually blind when he composed these magisterial lines. Like his Musical counterparts Beethoven and Bach ,who created some of their finest music when their sensory apparatus had completely failed them, Milton dictated "Paradise Lost" to his aides over a period of five years and sold it for a pittance to a publisher, who couldn't afford to have a rerun of the print after the first set was sold out... Such is the price a genius pays!!!.
What is interesting for me is that Milton was one of the earliest proponents of liberalism in modern society as we know it. He had strong belief in dogma free Christianity and he was against the hegemony of monarchy and its insistence on the authority of the Church as the moral arbiter of Man's foibles and strengths . In fact, "Paradise lost", is more of a political commentary on the unfortunate restoration of Monarchy in seventeenth century, which Milton portrayed as a "Fall from grace" because society was again plunged into a servitude from which it had come out gasping in the tumultuous years of Cromwell . It was with deep anguish that he wrote the poem, more as consolation to himself than as a work that would merit literary acclaim. Milton believed that the salvation of man lay in himself and his ability to transcend the narrow boundaries of society and merge into a higher paradigm of reality . Being an optimist ,He set this theme in his lesser known but very profound sequel titled "Paradise Regained". It is a much shorter poem than its predecessor, in which Milton eulogized the martyrdom of Christ as a signpost for Man progress and evolution.
Well to conclude, Both these poems need to read and enjoyed for the sheer beauty of its language and the nonchalance of Milton's theology . Generations of Poets : Keats,Wordsworth, Shelley - to name a few have unconsciously drawn from the sublime waters of Milton's thought and writing. No words can summarize the force and glory of his work better than Samuel Johnson's epigrammatic comment when He wrote " Milton had the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful......"
What more can a poet do?........
God bless.....
What is interesting for me is that Milton was one of the earliest proponents of liberalism in modern society as we know it. He had strong belief in dogma free Christianity and he was against the hegemony of monarchy and its insistence on the authority of the Church as the moral arbiter of Man's foibles and strengths . In fact, "Paradise lost", is more of a political commentary on the unfortunate restoration of Monarchy in seventeenth century, which Milton portrayed as a "Fall from grace" because society was again plunged into a servitude from which it had come out gasping in the tumultuous years of Cromwell . It was with deep anguish that he wrote the poem, more as consolation to himself than as a work that would merit literary acclaim. Milton believed that the salvation of man lay in himself and his ability to transcend the narrow boundaries of society and merge into a higher paradigm of reality . Being an optimist ,He set this theme in his lesser known but very profound sequel titled "Paradise Regained". It is a much shorter poem than its predecessor, in which Milton eulogized the martyrdom of Christ as a signpost for Man progress and evolution.
Well to conclude, Both these poems need to read and enjoyed for the sheer beauty of its language and the nonchalance of Milton's theology . Generations of Poets : Keats,Wordsworth, Shelley - to name a few have unconsciously drawn from the sublime waters of Milton's thought and writing. No words can summarize the force and glory of his work better than Samuel Johnson's epigrammatic comment when He wrote " Milton had the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful......"
What more can a poet do?........
God bless.....
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