Wow — four hundred years, and (many) people still don’t even furrow their brows when you say the name “John Milton.” Most of us aspire to be remembered for one-fourth of that span, if that much.
Today, Milton’s memory is honored (if not read, exactly) principally for his epic works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained — and, to a lesser extent, for his other poetry.
But in his time he was also something of a political gadfly. Wikipedia speaks of his “radical, republican politics and heretical religious views,” which — coming, as they did, before, during, and after the English Civil War — ensured either his popularity (during Cromwell’s Commonwealth) or his ostracism (during the monarchy).
Among the forward-thinking issues which Milton made a point of espousing was freedom of written expression (what we’d call freedom of the press, today).
