A Survey of the Works of John Milton Quiz

Answer: Novels

Milton wrote odes, lyrical poems, pastoral poems, sonnets, and epic poems. He also wrote numerous tracts supporting various political and religious positions, such as his five antiprelatical tracts, which attack the episcopal form of church leadership. He wrote a closet drama, "Samson Agonistes", and a masque, "Comus". However, he never wrote any novels.

Novels did not begin to become a common form of writing until the 18th century, and Daniel Defoe, who wrote "Robinson Crusoe" and "Moll Flanders", is often considered to be among the first English novelists, though some say the first English novel was "Le Morte d'Arthur" (1485) or "Don Quixote" (1605) or "Oroonoko" (1688).

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..."

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."

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.

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."

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...."

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?

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."

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..."

Answer: To his pleasure palace to be tempted

A masque was a courtly entertainment, and this one was presented on the Feast of Saints Michael (Michaelmas) in 1634 at Ludlow Castle for the First Earl of Bridgewater, John Egerton, in order to celebrate his appointment as Lord President of Wales. In the masque, a woman becomes lost in the woods and encounters Comus, who brings her to his pleasure palace.

He tries to get her to drink from his magical cup (representing sexual temptation), but she refuses and instead praises the virtues of chastity and temperance.

Answer: He drowned at sea.

King was a friend from Cambridge. In August of 1637, his ship sank in the Irish Sea and he drowned. The poem is considered a pastoral elegy and begins:

"Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year."

Answer: His blindness

This is sonnet 19, and it is sometimes given the title "On His Blindness", though that was never Milton's title for it. This Petrarchan-style sonnet is thought to have been written after Milton went completely blind. In the poem, he considers how his blindness has made it difficult for him to continue to write:

"When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless..."

The sonnet ends with one of Milton's most famous lines:

"They also serve who only stand and wait."

Answer: Judges

This tragic closet drama was originally published with "Paradise Regain'd" in 1671. It tells the story of Samson and Dalila and draws from the Book of Judges chapters 13 through 16. A "closet" drama is not meant for stage performance. Other than Samson and Dalila, the play features just a handful of characters: Manoa (Samson's father), Harapha of Gath, a public officer, a messenger, and the Chorus of Danites.

Answer: Wisdom

"But what is strength without a double share.
Of wisdom, vast, unyielding burdensome,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command."

Samson learns too late, after being subtly deceived by Dalila, that brute strength is not enough to survive this world. Samson is left blind in the end and must rely on others to care for him, putting him in a humbling and subservient position. Milton must have felt a similar humbling from his own blindness, and some lines of this play are thought to represent his own emotions.

Answer: The Waldensians

The Waldensians, who preached poverty as a way to perfection, were declared heretical by the Catholic church. In 1655, Savoyard troops committed a series of brutal massacres against the group in the Duchy of Savoy. Milton's poem begins:

"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones;"

Answer: saint

The simile here refers to the heroine of the Euripedes play by the same name. In the play, Alcestis, known for her love of her husband, dies and returns from the dead. Milton's second wife, Katherine Woodcok, died in 1657 a few months after giving birth to their daughter. They had been married only a year. The poem ends, sadly:

"Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night."

Answer: A Vindication of the Rights of Women

"A Vindication of the Rights of Women" was written by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792 and is one of the earliest works of feminism. "De Doctrina Christiana" ("On Christian Doctrine") was a theological treatise of Milton's. In "A Treatise of Civil Power", published in 1659, Milton discusses heresy and free thought.

In "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce" (1643), Milton argues that divorce is permissible in Christianity because Jesus did not overturn the permission found in Deuteronomy and was only addressing a specific audience in Matthew when he said, "But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery."

Answer: heaven

This comes from John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and is spoken by Satan. Milton was born in 1608 and served the Puritan and Parliamentary cause through his writings. He served as a civil servant under Oliver Cromwell. He sold the publication rights to "Paradise Lost" in April of 1667 for only five pounds. That would be worth about $1,000 U.S. dollars in 2020, a rather small sum for what would become one of the most famous and enduring works of English literature.

Answer: 23

Milton was only a ripe young 23 when he wrote this sonnet, "On Arriving at the Age of 23" which begins:

"How soon hath Time the subtle thief of youth
Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year!"

The sonnet concludes:

"Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great task Master's eye."

John Milton lived to the age of 65 and died November 8, 1674 of gout.

Answer: Samuel Johnson

Dr. Johnson, who lived from 1709 to 1784, was England's foremost literary critic. Despite his praise for "Paradise Lost", Samuel Johnson feared Milton's use of blank verse would inspire poor imitations and he felt that Milton overused obscure allusions in works such as "Lycidas". Dr. Johnson was also irritated by Milton's Puritan beliefs.