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John Milton was born in London in 1608 and educated at St Paul’s School, followed by the University of Cambridge. He knew at least ten languages, and was enormously well-read in literature, history, theology, philosophy and natural sciences. Milton’s Commonplace Book, in which he made notes on his extensive reading, is now held at the British Library.
In February of 1652 Milton went completely blind. Many great artists have suffered blindness, but the twist in Milton's case is that he went blind before he wrote his best works, including the immortal epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton had written a few great poems before 1652, but he was not a famous poet by this point. In fact, Milton was more famous as a servant of the government of Oliver Cromwell, the "Lord Protector" of England during the period between the kings Charles I and Charles II.
When John Milton went blind, he must have felt like modern athletes feel when they suffer a career-ending injury. You spend your whole life working toward a goal, pour your heart and soul into practising, and then some uncontrollable event or freak accident puts you back in the shoes of a regular person. John Milton's life plan was to be of service to God. He felt he could best achieve this goal by using his intelligence and especially his writing. In the days when Milton was alive, it was very hard to write when you had no sight. He was entirely dependent on other people to write down his work and read to him. Thankfully, Milton's blindness was not as crippling as he thought it would be, and he eventually adapted to the condition enough to write some of the world's great works of literature.
