PL context

1608-1674, during the Stuart era, which included Jacobean and Carolinian

- Jacobean era
- Carolinian era
- English Civil War
- Protectorate
- Restoration

Sixteen years’ old
First wife 1642
Unhappy, causing him to develop radical ideas about divorce
Died in birthing their fourth child in 1652.

Second wife 1656
Died in childbirth in 1958, along with their child

Last wife in 1663 until Milton’s death
Happy despite 31-yr age gap
Some argument that she was to Milton more an attendant than wife

Puritan

Milton believed in mortalism, which was a belief in the mortality of the soul, and that after bodily death it was in a sleep like state until the Last Judgement

He argued for a disestablishment of religion, saying that the gospel was forceful enough without enforced religious views from government

Oliver Cromwell, writing in defence of the regicide of Charles I

Went into hiding and composed PL

In 1652, meaning he dictated PL to his daughter for writing

A traditionally heroic one, like the Aeneid and Odyssey, but he instead chose a biblical story

1667

- Republicanism
- Anti-monarchism
- Individual freedom and rights
- Socio-political hierarchy (of whom the highest were worthy)

A drama, which began composition in 1642

In a family estate near Windsor where he read the Greek and Latin classics

1637, an English poem in which he criticises Catholics, likening them to wolves leaping into a sheep's pen

- Union of Testaments
- Unworthiness of mankind
- Importance of Christ's love in salvation for man

Book IV, alluding to biblical passages that agree with his view of women's inferiority

- The Doctrine
- Judgement of Martin Bucer
- Tetrachordon
- Colasterion

1643,

“the apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh him against the evils of solitary life"

"mistak'n in their dispositions through any error, concealment, or misadventure" before marriage