He is the last important representative of the 'Metaphysical'
style. In his own day he was acclaimed as the greatest poet of all time,
but as is usual in such cases his reputation very rapidly waned. Edmund
Waller (1606-1687), a very wealthy gentleman in public life who played a
flatly discreditable part in the Civil War, is most important for his share
in shaping the riming pentameter couplet into the smooth pseudo-classical
form rendered famous by Dryden and Pope; but his only notable single poems
are two Cavalier love-lyrics in stanzas, 'On a Girdle' and 'Go, Lovely
Rose.'
JOHN MILTON, 1608-1674. Conspicuous above all his contemporaries as the
representative poet of Puritanism, and, by almost equally general consent,
distinctly the greatest of English poets except Shakspere, stands John
Milton. His life falls naturally into three periods: 1. Youth and
preparation, 1608-1639, when he wrote his shorter poems. 2. Public life,
1639-1660, when he wrote, or at least published, in poetry, only a few
sonnets. 3. Later years, 1660-1674, of outer defeat, but of chief poetic
achievement, the period of 'Paradise Lost,' 'Paradise Regained,' and
'Samson Agonistes.'
Milton was born in London in December, 1608. His father was a prosperous
scrivener, or lawyer of the humbler sort, and a Puritan, but broad-minded,
and his children were brought up in the love of music, beauty, and
learning. At the age of twelve the future poet was sent to St.
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