Milton To Pope

564 Words2 Pages

In this essay I will attempt to contrast the

type of society that would create a Milton to a society that

would create a Pope. Although you may be able to

understand what I'm saying from my essay, the depth of

what I want to say can not be put into words, and therefore

I suggest that you read and compare the same information

that I have. I will now explain a bit about Milton and Pope

to help you get an understanding. Milton was born into the

middle class and grew up in a highly cultured environment.

Milton created relatively few poems. Milton was greatly

influenced by the puritan cause and Oliver Cromwell with a

strong parliament government. Pope was born shortly after

Milton's death and was a Roman Catholic. Many

restrictions against Catholics. Pope had to struggle for

position. Some of the restrictions made Pope move outside

London and he could not legally vote, hold office, or attend

university. Pope not allowed to attend university would be

one of the most significant contrasts between Milton and

Pope. Where Milton stayed at University for a long, long

time, Pope never went to University. For Milton the society

gave him everything he wanted. He had life fairly easy and

had the government and the stronger religion backing

Milton that Pope did not have. Pope had to fight for

everything whereas Milton did not. The society that helped

Milton did not help Pope. The society that created Mil! ton

was a strong Puritan Parliament Government. Also at the

time Milton's society spoke highly of child prodigies like

Mozart and Mill. Milton at the age of 23 thought that he

had basically done nothing with his life up to that point.

Pope was a great poet at a very young age and if he did

look back and try to assess his life at age of 23 he would

have seen that he had already accomplished a lot. Also

Pope was writing just before the Pre-romantic and the

romantic poetry there for his poetry would tend to reflect a

changing to that style of poetry. The society and what the

people want caused the style of writing to go this way. The

majority of the writing during 1670 - 1700 at the start of

Pope's writing career and right after Milton's has been

described as grotesque slanderous writing. This writing

reflects the society and what the society wanted. The

society that created Milton was strongly religious and

wanted all the writing to be perfect in the ways of the

church and the ! structure of the poetry whereas the society

that created Pope was slanderous most of the time against

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