Young Genius or Old Master? John Milton and the Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity

Abstract

Abstract Biographers and critics have often noted the late composition of Paradise Lost as remarkable, and indeed the narrator himself commented on the tragic wartime delay. The late publication of Paradise Lost raises important questions about the poet's creative process and more generally about creativity late in a poet's life. The article elaborates the question of whether Milton was an experimental or conceptual innovator, using economist David Galenson's dichotomy of the creative life cycle, posits a surprising answer, and explains the significance for other works of early modern art.