John Milton was born on December 9, 1608. 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. In April 1625, just after the accession of Charles I, he matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge. During these years, Milton considered entering the ministry, but his poetic ambitions always seemed to take precedence over his ministerial aspirations.
Milton composed his early verse in Latin, in the fashion of a classically educated person. 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...
