Arguably the most prolific and celebrated poet in the English language, John Milton carries in his poetry and prose a complex and highly learned tone. In this tone can be distinguished several patterns and motifs carried through in many of Milton's works. His view of the world focused a great deal on women, religion, and the fate decreed by God, all with a strong backdrop in the antiquity and learning passed on from generations before.

     Because this antiquity underlies nearly all of the poems by Milton, examining it first will be perhaps most useful in understanding a large part of his world-view. In nearly all of his poetry, there are numerous intertextual references to Greek and Roman legends, as well as many pieces of then-obsolete astronomy. There are so many of these references in his works that pointing out all or even a great part of them in any given poem would be tedious and virtually unprofitable, except to express the degree to which he makes use of allusion to add depth to his poetry. Instead, minor clips from particular poems will be at first chosen as representative of his larger style.

     Examples of this intertextuality can be seen even in early works of his such as "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." In the poem, when Christ is born, all of the pagan gods trudge from reality to their new home in hell. This provides an opportunity for Milton to exhibit his knowledge, as he lists the Genius; Greek oracles; nymphs; Greek, Canaanite, Phoenician, and Egyptian gods (minor and major) as they each make their exit with a brief visual linked to their background (ll. 173-218). The breadth of this reference to then-unworshipped gods displays both Milton's depth of learning and the difficulty inherent in attempting to fully comprehend his verse.

     Similar antiquitic allusions are found in the following passage from L'Allegro:

But come thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister Graces more
To ivy-crownèd Bacchus bore; (ll. 11-16)

All of the proper names mentioned were gods or goddesses in Roman mythology– Euphrosyne was a goddess of beauty, Venus a greater goddess of the same, and Bacchus a god of wine and debauchery. In this context, they serve to bring forth the light beauty of the buoyant poem, and to here drive home the prevalence in Milton's poetry of antiquitic intertextuality.

     Milton also makes use of some unusual allusions to astronomical theories which were outdated by the 17th century. His reference to Ptolemaic astronomy is common to many of his poems, which could possibly be explained by their prevalence in the literature which he studied. At that point, the outdated astronomy had become a sort of myth unto itself, the use of which is comparable to his use of the mythology of the Greeks and Romans. His poem "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" holds an example in lines 125-132, as he references the "crystal spheres" which are to ring out in "ninefold harmony." Though by that point theories of the Ptolemaic universe had been widely overruled, the image of the nine planets singing out in harmony as they circled the earth (the scholars of the Middle Ages believed that they did) was apparently too picturesque for him to pass up. Thus Milton's allusions extend to historical astronomy as well as past mythology.

     Another opinion which is expressed in fewer of Milton's works, but is important to his view of the world, is his understanding of women. He repeats the idea that all women are deceptive and that when a man falls, it is usually the fault of a woman. "Samson Agonistes" most concisely (and it seems, in many cases, most bitterly) portrays the view he carried on from generations of gender-role debates past. His work frequently indicates that he believed the woman to be the weaker sex, morally as well as physically. In lines 210-211, the chorus sings to Samson that "Wisest men / Have erred, and by bad women been deceived." Reading this, one would almost get the impression that no man has ever fostered deceit, but only women against unsuspecting men.

     Later, Samson, having been enslaved and blinded, bewails his condition and the circumstances which brought him to it– marriage to Dalilah.

The base degree to which I now am fallen,
These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base
As was my former servitude, ignoble,
Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,
True slavery; and that blindness worse than this,
That saw not how degenerately I served. (ll. 414-419)