John Milton (1608–1674) has a unique claim on literary and intellectual history as the author of both Paradise Lost, the greatest narrative poem in English, and prose defences of the execution of Charles I that influenced the French and American revolutions. Tracing Milton’s literary, intellectual, and political development with unprecedented depth and understanding, Poet of Revolution is an unmatched biographical account of the formation of the mind that would go on to create Paradise Lost—but would first justify the killing of a king.
Biographers of Milton have always struggled to explain how the young poet became a notorious defender of regicide and other radical ideas such as freedom of the press, religious toleration, and republicanism. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography of Milton’s formative years, Nicholas McDowell draws on recent archival discoveries to reconcile at last the poet and polemicist. He charts Milton’s development from his earliest days as a London schoolboy, through his university life and travels in Italy, to his emergence as a public writer during the English Civil War. At the same time, McDowell presents fresh, richly contextual readings of Milton’s best-known works from this period, including the “Nativity Ode,” “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” Comus, and “Lycidas.”
Challenging biographers who claim that Milton was always a secret radical, Poet of Revolution shows how the events that provoked civil war in England combined with Milton’s astonishing programme of self-education to instil the beliefs that would shape not only his political prose but also his later epic masterpiece.
Nicholas McDowell is Professor of Early Modern Literature and Thought at the University of Exeter. He is the author of The English Radical Imagination and Poetry and Allegiance in the English Civil Wars and the coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Milton.
"This new book by Nicholas McDowell is superior to anything that I’ve yet read."—Paul Lay, FiveBooks
"A terrific work of scholarship."—Jonathan Bate, Catholic Herald
"One of my favorite non-fiction works this year. . . . Every page is enjoyable."—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
"[A] magnificent intellectual biography."—Daniel Johnson, Law & Liberty
"Nicholas McDowell’s erudite Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton helps us understand why and how Milton pursued poetic glory. . . . [He] skillfully integrates Milton’s literary world with his dangerous, complex, and rapidly changing world of religion and politics."—A.M. Juster, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Make room for Professor McDowell’s work, erudite, engaged, original, and illuminating."—Paul Hammond, Seventeenth Century
"[McDowell] transforms our understanding of Milton’s emergent worldview with intelligence, authority and considerable flair."—Rhodri Lewis, Prospect
"[A] tour-de-force pilgrimage through Milton's formative years. . . . Poet of Revolution is a heroic work, a judicious and well-written biography of England's greatest poet."—Paul Krause, Merion West
"This is a masterful and engaging intellectual biography. McDowell has a new narrative to tell about Milton during these formative years. Chapter after chapter contain fresh information and sharp new readings of Milton's works and the biographical evidence."—David Quint, Yale University
“This is a superb book and a massive achievement. It will be the decisive book on the subject for a generation.”—William Poole, University of Oxford
“A remarkable book that is a pleasure to read, Poet of Revolution is consistently illuminating—a rigorous, imaginative, and ambitiously comprehensive account of Milton’s intellectual development.”—Paul Stevens, University of Toronto
