He nevertheless continued with his great poem, composing out loud, memorising the lines and then dictating them to members of his family, as well as friends such as the poet Andrew Marvell. Completely blind since 1652, supported by his third wife - the previous ones had died in childbirth - and his daughters, Milton saw his health steadily decline. Thenceforth he devoted himself to scholarly study and his writing. Milton's writings were condemned, and in 1660 he was even briefly imprisoned. The Restoration marked the end of two decades of public service. In private life, he wrote and suffered an unhappy marriage, as well as weakening eyesight. Milton was then 32 years old: his pamphlets supporting civil and religious liberty had already given him a prominent political profile and after the Civil War he was to flourish at the heart of Cromwell's Commonwealth government. Evidence for this is the existence of drafts of a verse tragedy to be titled Adam Unparadised. The germ of the idea that became Paradise Lost seems to have been in Milton's mind from about 1640. His early work consisted mainly of poems in latin and letters in English prose. A brilliant but tumultuous student, he began writing at the tender age of ten. Published in book form for the first timeīorn in 1608, Milton attended the prestigious schools - St Paul's in London, Christ's College in Cambridge. In Pandæmonium, capital of Hell, Satan convenes a council of demons. With promises of a new Heaven he puts his legions on a war footing. He calls upon his most trusted lieutenant in crime, Belzebuth he assembles and galvanizes his evil hosts. This place haunted by shadows, called Chaos, is where the Devil awakes in confusion finding himself exiled amongst lost souls. Despite his best efforts, Satan is cast out from Heaven and condemned to Hell. The cause? The despised serpent of course, Satan, who incites an insurrection against God, accompanied by his legions of dark angels. The first Book, the only surviving manuscript from near on five centuries, narrates the events following man’s disobedience and resultant fall from Paradise. Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. That with no middle flight intends to soar In the beginning how the heavens and earthĭelight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Of that forbidden tree whose mortal tasteīrought death into the World, and all our woe, Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
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