SOURCE: "Milton and the Sons of Orpheus," in Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser, Johnson, Milton and the Literary System, University of California Press, 1983, pp. 185-88.

In the essay below, Helgerson discusses Milton's role as laureate, a position which traditionally inhibited poetic creativity. Helgerson posits that Milton escaped this pitfall once he became less heedful of any obligations to the state, found his own voice, and fashioned a new self-presentation, as evidenced in Samson Agonites, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained.

Literary autonomy is precisely what the works Milton produced in the 1640s and 1650s most obviously lack. By the time the 1645 volume was published, he had given up verse—even occasional verse. Only three of its poems, three sonnets, belong to the preceding five years. The other most recent English poem, Lycidas, dates all the way back to 1637, and the most recent work in Latin is the Epitaphium Damonis of 1640. In...