An English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse.

Contents
Paradise Lost (1667)
Poetical Works (1899)
Areopagitica (1644)
Paradise Regained (1667)
Milton's Comus (1890)
Poemata : Latin, Greek and Italian Poems

Paradise Lost (1667)
The protagonist of this Protestant epic is the fallen angel Satan. From a modern perspective it may appear that Milton presents Satan sympathetically, as an ambitious and prideful being who defies his tyrannical creator, omnipotent God, and wages war on Heaven, only to be defeated and cast down. Some critics regard the character of Satan as a Byronic hero.

Areopagitica (1644)—written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship—is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of free speech and freedom of the press.