Browse all of the Salem on Literature series

Milton (Masterplots II: Poetry Series)

The Poem

William Blake’s Milton: A Poem in 2 Books, like John Milton’s Paradise Regained (1671), is a short epic poem. Instead of using the more traditional pentameter, Blake wrote Milton in “fourteeners,” a long seven-beat line that he patterned after biblical verse. Milton is named for John Milton (1608–1674), Blake’s great seventeenth century precursor, and Blake makes Milton (or his vision of Milton) the poem’s protagonist.

The first book of Milton describes the Bard’s song and Milton’s descent from Eternity to...

[The entire page is 2424 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

Lookup any word on eNotes with our dictionary. Highlight the word and press SHIFT + D for a definition, or SHIFT + T for a synonym.