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Paradise Lost and Other Poems (Classics Club)
Paradise Lost and Other Poems - Classics Club Author:John Milton It is not given to many men to realize in youth where their life's pathway lies -- and many who are gifted with this foreknowledge are often frustrated in the carrying out of the designs that are revealed to then. John Milton was one of those rare beings -- convinced that God had marked him for great things, and who then preceded without waverin... more »g to a full realization of this promise.
We are filled with even more admiration for Milton when we learn that he achieved his fame "the hard way" -- that he retreated to no ivory tower, did not shrink from the harshness of war, politics, and intrigue that had best beset England during its "Civil War" days. Indeed, the vigor and honesty of his political writing and pamphleteering for the cause of Cromwell's Puritans actually seemed to temper the blade of his idealism, and fir him for sterner, more lasting poetry than the romantic notions of his earlier life.
But while the many years spent in the political arena served him well, they cost him his eyesight. Yet, even this could not turn him back. Rather, it only turned him in another direction -- inward -- and actually heightened his imagination, his perception of higher truths and beauties than are visible to us who have eyes, but do not see.« less