![]() ![]() The poetic vocation to which Milton was heir is both nationalistic and religious in character. Like Homer and Virgil before him, Milton would be the epic poet of the English nation. He saw himself as a poet whose lineage extended, through the Romans, back to the Greeks. Unlike the learned classicists of his day, who imitated Greek and Latin versification, Milton sought to rehabilitate the English poetic tradition by establishing it as an extension or flowering of the classical tradition. ![]() As soon as his third year at Cambridge, however, he expressed his desire to abandon such fashionable poetry in order to write in his native tongue. Milton composed his early verse in Latin, in the fashion of a classically educated person. ![]() During these years, Milton considered entering the ministry, but his poetic ambitions always seemed to take precedence over his ministerial aspirations. In April 1625, just after the accession of Charles I, he matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge. Milton's father was a scrivener and, perhaps more importantly, a devout Puritan, who had been disinherited by his Roman Catholic family when he turned Protestant. ![]() John Milton was born on December 9, 1608. ![]()
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