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 trong 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 omantic 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 there enemies. The society that created Pope did not put as much focus on religion in poetry and this time was very bordering on the romantic period in the sense of the melancholy and that the writing was not very serious.
The society that created Milton was very serious whereas the society that created Pope from what I can see was not very serious and was very trivial at times. The society that created Milton was a very religious serious society that had a strong Puritan Parliament Government, whereas the society that created Pope seemed to be a very trivial, petty, slanderous society that was not very serious and did not put a lot of emphasis on religion.
