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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 25 general entries.
Special Topics
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Milton, John
3. In 1642 he married Mary Powell,who died in 1652. In 1656 he married Katherine Woodcock, who died in 1658, and in 1663 he married Elizabeth Minshull, who outlived him. He can't have been an easy man to live with: his first wife lived apart from him for a while. A fictional account of his first marriage from the wife's point of view can be found in 'Wife to Mr Milton', by Robert Graves.
| At Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire you can visit 'Milton's cottage', where the poet lived from 1665 to 1666. Why did he move out of London at this time? | The Life Of John Milton
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To escape from the plague. Milton lived in about a dozen houses during his life, but this is the only one that is still standing.
| One of Milton's most famous poems, written in the early 1650s, is a sonnet ending with the line 'They also serve who only stand and wait'. What is the subject of the poem? | The Life Of John Milton
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His blindness. Milton's eyesight had always been weak, and it deteriorated rapidly from his mid thirties onwards. By 1652 he was completely blind.
| Milton's 'Areopagitica', published in 1644, is one of the greatest polemics in the English language. What does it attack? | The Life Of John Milton
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Censorship of the press. Censorship, in the form of the licensing of books before publication, had been exercised by the Court of Star Chamber until that Court was abolished by Parliament in 1641. Following a flood of pamphlets, Parliament reimposed licensing by an ordinance in 1643.
Italy. He is generally thought to have met Galileo, but this is not certain.
| Edward King, a minor poet and a contemporary of Milton's at Cambridge, was drowned at sea in 1637. Milton wrote an elegy for him. What was the title of this poem? | The Life Of John Milton
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Lycidas. Milton's poem was one of a collection of 36 (some in English, some in Latin and a few in Greek, which was published to mourn King's death. It's probably the only one that is read today. It may be worth while to mention that the last line is 'Tomorrow to fresh *woods* and pastures new' (not 'fresh fields').
| Milton's masque 'Comus' celebrated the 1st Earl of Bridgewater's entry into his duties as Lord President of the Council of Wales. It was performed in 1634 at the Lord President's official residence. Where was this? | The Life Of John Milton
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Ludlow Castle. Ludlow Castle, standing on cliffs overlooking the town's two rivers, was begun in the reign of William the Conqueror and became the seat of the Lords of the Marches in 1475. It was partly dismantled by Parliament after the Civil War.The ruins are open to the public.
Christ's. His looks earned him the nickname 'the Lady of Christ's'.
St Paul's. St Paul's School was founded by Dean Colet in 1509 to provide free education for 153 boys (153 was the number of the 'miraculous draught of fishes' in John 21:11). Like many such old schools,it is today an expensive private school and is situated at Barnes in South-West London.
London. Traditionally, a Cockney (i.e. a true Londoner) has to be 'born within the sound of Bow bells', and you can't get much closer to the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church than Bread Street, where Milton was born.
| In 'Paradise Lost', which angel is ordered by God to drive Adam and Eve out of Paradise? Before he does so, he shows Adam a number of visions about the future of the human race, beginning with Cain murdering Abel and ending with the redemption of mankind through Christ. Who is this angel that has a large role in the finishing chapters of 'Paradise Lost'? | John Milton
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Michael. Well, that's all folks.
3. Mary Powell from 1641 to 1652, Katherine Woodcock from 1656 to 1658 and in 1663 he married Elizabeth Minshull, who survived him.
| At the end of his life, Milton wrote a follow-up to 'Paradise Lost', a brief epic in four books that treats Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. What is the name of this follow-up? | John Milton
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| In 1652 Milton became an invalid. Did he become blind or deaf? | John Milton
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Blind . He was entirely dependent on friends to transcribe his dictation.
| This poet joined Milton, at Milton's request, in the post of Latin secretary to Cromwell's Council of State, and helped his friend Milton avoid execution for his revolutionary polemics, and helped negotiate Milton's release from a brief imprisonment. He also wrote a brilliant poem of criticism and interpretation on Milton's 'Paradise Lost' that was used as preface to the second edition. Who was this poet? | John Milton
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Andrew Marvell. Of course, Andrew Marvell was a great poet in his own right, not just a friend of John Milton.
| 'Book 1' of 'Paradise Lost' presents Satan with his angels fallen into Hell. When recovered, Satan awakens all his legions and speaks to them. The first he adresses is described as 'one next to himself in power, and next in crime, long after known in palestine'. What's the name of this fallen angel? | John Milton
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Beelzebub. Beelzebub, or Baal, is called the prince of devils in Matthew 12.24. As with the other fallen angels, his angelic name has been obliterated, and he is now called by the name he will bear as a pagan deity.
| 'Paradise Lost' tells the story of Adam and Eve. The poem is divided in 12 'books'. In what 'book' does Eve finally eat the apple that 'brought death into the world, and all our woe'? | John Milton
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9 . In 'book 9', lines 780-784, we can read: 'So saying, her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat. Earth felt the wound, and all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost'.
A tract. 'Areopagitica' is the most literary of Milton's tracts. It sets forth a trenchant defense of intellectual liberty. His target is the Press Ordinance of June 14, 1643, Parliament's attempt to crack down on the flood of pamphlets that poured forth both from legal and from underground presses as the civil war raged. (This information was taken from the 'Norton Anthology of English Literature')
| In 1634 Milton wrote a masque. What's the name of that masque? | John Milton
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'Comus'. Both 'Lycidas' and 'Il Penseroso' were written by Milton, but they were poems, not masques. 'The Masque of Blackness' was written by Ben Jonson. A masque is an elaborate court entertainment that combines poetic drama, music, song, dance, and splendid costumes and settings. It was very popular at court in the 17th century.
| How old was Milton when he wrote 'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity'? | John Milton
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21. The ode was written on Christmas 1629, a few weeks after Milton's twenty-first birthday.
| What was the name of Milton's first wife, whom he married in 1641, and who left him a few months after the marriage, and returned to him in 1645, but died in childbirth in 1652? | John Milton
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Mary Powell. Katherine Woodcock was Milton's second wife, Anna Hathaway was Shakespeare's spouse and Emily Sellwood was married to Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
| What is the name of the great epic about the battle between God and Satan and the history of man, that is considered to be Milton's absolute masterpiece? | John Milton
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Paradise Lost . If you didn't get this one right, I'm afraid this isn't your kind of quiz.
False . Although Milton enjoyed the company of some aristocrats and his brother, Christopher, fought on the royalist side, he was allied with the Puritan cause. He went as far as writing defenses of the execution of Charles I and the new republic. He also served as Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth Government (1649-1653) and to Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate (1654-1658).
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