Milton
borrowed from St. Aviʹtus his description of Paradise (book i.), of Satan (book ii.), and many other parts of Paradise Lost. He also borrowed very largely from Du Bartas (1544–1591), who wrote an epic poem entitled The Week of Creation, which was translated into almost every European language. St. Avitus wrote in Latin hexameters The Creation, The Fall, and The Expulsion from Paradise. (460–525.)
Milton. “Milton,” says Dryden, in the preface to his Fables, “was the poetical son of Spenser… . Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original.”
Milton of Germany. Friedrich G. Klopstock, author of The Messiah. (1724–1803.) Coleridge says he is “a very German Milton indeed.”
