English Literature / Unit 9 ENL 0801 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Milton's Life, Politics and Blindness
Captions available
The idea
John Milton, born in London in sixteen-oh-eight, studied at Cambridge and prepared himself deliberately to be a poet. He wrote pamphlets for the Commonwealth, defended the execution of Charles the First, and served as Latin Secretary. He was totally blind by sixteen fifty-two and dictated his later work.
In practice
Scholar, republican, blind poet.
Where people slip
Paradise Lost was dictated by a blind man.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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