John Milton Trivia

1. What is Milton's main weakness? He is _____.

From Quiz Paradise Lost

Answer: blind

Milton is blind, and he expresses this quite bitterly, speaking of God: "thou/ Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain/ To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn." (iii) Milton expresses this several times.

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: London

Traditionally, a Cockney (i.e. a true Londoner) has to be 'born within the sound of Bow bells', and you can't get much closer to the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church than Bread Street, where Milton was born.

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: Blank verse

Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter. "Paradise Lost" took Milton about five years to write (though he may have started parts of it even earlier, before the English Civil War). He was sixty by the time it was published. The epic poem solidified his reputation as a great English poet. The work begins: "Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Sing Heav'nly Muse..."

From Quiz John Milton

Answer: Paradise Lost & 'Paradise Lost'

If you didn't get this one right, I'm afraid this isn't your kind of quiz.

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: St Paul's

St Paul's School was founded by Dean Colet in 1509 to provide free education for 153 boys (153 was the number of the 'miraculous draught of fishes' in John 21:11). Like many such old schools,it is today an expensive private school and is situated at Barnes in South-West London.

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: God

The first version of "Paradise Lost" was published in 1667 with a revision in 1674. The poem recounts the Fall of Man through Adam and Eve's initial sin and the role of Satan in the whole affair. In the opening stanza of "Paradise Lost", Milton writes, "I may assert eternal providence, / And justify the ways of God to men." The neoclassical poet Alexander Pope later draws on this line in his Christian apologetic "Essay on Man" when he writes: "Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man."

From Quiz Paradise Lost

Answer: appoint the Son

God appoints the Son to tempt Satan, and incited him to disobedience. Then he punished him, creating a never-ending cycle of disobedience.

From Quiz John Milton

Answer: Mary Powell

Katherine Woodcock was Milton's second wife, Anna Hathaway was Shakespeare's spouse and Emily Sellwood was married to Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: Christ's

His looks earned him the nickname 'the Lady of Christ's'.

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: Freedom of speech

The polemical tract, published on November 23, 1644 in the midst of the English Civil War, was subtitled "A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parliament of England". It argues against the Licensing Order of 1643, which required authors to get their work licensed by the government prior to publication. It advocates for freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. In the work, Milton railed against censorship and licensing, suggesting that works ought to be examined and refuted rather than prohibited. Milton himself had been censored when he attempted to publish tracts in defense of divorce.

From Quiz John Milton

Answer: 21

The ode was written on Christmas 1629, a few weeks after Milton's twenty-first birthday.

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: Ludlow Castle

Ludlow Castle, standing on cliffs overlooking the town's two rivers, was begun in the reign of William the Conqueror and became the seat of the Lords of the Marches in 1475. It was partly dismantled by Parliament after the Civil War.The ruins are open to the public.

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: The temptation of Jesus

Published in 1671, this follow up to "Paradise Lost" primarily focuses on the temptation of Jesus as told in Luke's Gospel. Shorter than his first epic, "Paradise Regained" is four books instead of twelve and is written in a plainer style. It begins: "I who e're while the happy Garden sung, By one mans disobedience lost, now sing Recover'd Paradise to all mankind, By one mans firm obedience fully tri'd Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil'd In all his wiles, defeated and repuls't, And Eden rais'd in the wast Wilderness."

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: Lycidas

Milton's poem was one of a collection of 36 (some in English, some in Latin and a few in Greek, which was published to mourn King's death. It's probably the only one that is read today. It may be worth while to mention that the last line is 'Tomorrow to fresh *woods* and pastures new' (not 'fresh fields').

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Written in 1629, this poem was included in Milton's 1645 collection "Poems of John Milton." The ode recounts Christ's incarnation and ties it in with his crucifixion. It begins: "This is the month, and this the happy morn Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, Of wedded maid, and virgin mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring...."

From Quiz Paradise Lost

Answer: God in him

It's in book iv, where Adam and Eve are first introduced: "For contemplation he and valour formed,/ For softness she and sweet attractive grace,/ He for God only, she for God in him." (iv)

From Quiz John Milton

Answer: 'Comus'

Both 'Lycidas' and 'Il Penseroso' were written by Milton, but they were poems, not masques. 'The Masque of Blackness' was written by Ben Jonson. A masque is an elaborate court entertainment that combines poetic drama, music, song, dance, and splendid costumes and settings. It was very popular at court in the 17th century.

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: Italy

He is generally thought to have met Galileo, but this is not certain.

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: William Shakespeare

Written in 1630, "On Shakespeare" was included in Milton's 1645 collection of poems. The collection also includes such works as "L'Allegro", "Il Penseroso", and "Lycidas". The poem begins: "What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

From Quiz Paradise Lost

Answer: Abdiel

He is but a lowly Seraph, and still remains true to God, when everyone else is swayed by Satan's argument. "Among the faithless, faithful only he;/ Among innumerable false, unmoved,/ Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,/ His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal." (v)

From Quiz John Milton

Answer: A tract

'Areopagitica' is the most literary of Milton's tracts. It sets forth a trenchant defense of intellectual liberty. His target is the Press Ordinance of June 14, 1643, Parliament's attempt to crack down on the flood of pamphlets that poured forth both from legal and from underground presses as the civil war raged. (This information was taken from the 'Norton Anthology of English Literature')

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: Censorship of the press

Censorship, in the form of the licensing of books before publication, had been exercised by the Court of Star Chamber until that Court was abolished by Parliament in 1641. Following a flood of pamphlets, Parliament reimposed licensing by an ordinance in 1643.

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: Satan

Although possibly unintended by Milton, his Satan has, over time, become a popular anti-hero of English literature. Many have found Milton's portrayal of him sympathetic or at least more intriguing than his portrayals of Adam, Eve, or Jesus. In these lines from "Paradise Lost", Satan contemplates his fate but is unable to bring himself to submit from God to escape it: "Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven. O, then, at last relent: Is there no place Left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but by submission; and that word Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced With other promises and other vaunts Than to submit, boasting I could subdue The Omnipotent."

From Quiz Paradise Lost

Answer: Sin

Ironic huh? Satan's daughter is Sin, sprung from his thoughts. Sin is seemingly beautiful, but a hideous monster in truth. "The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair,/ But ended foul in many a scaly fold." (ii)

From Quiz John Milton

Answer: disobedience & 'disobedience'

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: His blindness

Milton's eyesight had always been weak, and it deteriorated rapidly from his mid thirties onwards. By 1652 he was completely blind.

From Quiz A Survey of the Works of John Milton

Answer: Il Penseroso

"Il Penseroso" is a companion poem to "L'Allegro", which means "the happy man". Both are pastoral poems depicting a day spent in contemplation. Although it is unknown when the poems were written, they were included in Milton's 1645 collection. "Il Penseroso" begins: "Hence vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred, How little you bested, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys..."

From Quiz Paradise Lost

Answer: Death

Strangely enough, Satan had a relationship with his own daughter, Sin, and of that union begot a son, Death, who raped his mother...

From Quiz John Milton

Answer: 9 & nine & '9' & 'nine'

In 'book 9', lines 780-784, we can read: 'So saying, her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat. Earth felt the wound, and all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost'.

From Quiz The Life Of John Milton

Answer: To escape from the plague

Milton lived in about a dozen houses during his life, but this is the only one that is still standing.

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