John Milton

One of England's greatest poets, John Milton is acknowledged by admirers and detractors alike for his sublime imaginative works that span heaven and hell, and which include biblical heroes, newsmakers of his time, and the Christian Messiah. Doctor Samuel Johnson praised Milton's "copiousness and variety" as well as his "melodious words" with which he expressed his imagination (and conviction) in memorable verse. A master of the language "in its full extents," Milton defined the norms and values of the English poetic tradition : however unlikely, this seventeenth-century blind Puritan poet became the figure against whom all English successors would measure themselves.