Milton is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential English poets, ranking with Chaucer and Shakespeare. He wrote both poetry and prose, and in poetry wrote pastoral, elegy, epic, drama, sonnet, and other kinds of verse. His most famous and influential work is the epic Paradise Lost, which has been at the center of English literary criticism since Milton's day. His sonnets have received less critical attention. Lord Macaulay, in his essay "Milton" published in 1860, differed from most critics in that he valued the sonnets highly. He found that "traces . . . of the peculiar character of Milton may be found in all of his works; but it is most strongly displayed in the Sonnets. Those remarkable poems have been undervalued." Macaulay links the sonnets firmly to Milton's life and character, a view that seems especially true of

"On His Having Arrived at the Age of...