Milton at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson's Reading of John Milton

Milton at Monticello focuses on how Thomas Jefferson read John Milton’s political tracts, Paradise Lost, and Samson Agonistes. While examining Jefferson’s “Thoughts on English Prosody” and entries from his Literary Commonplace Book, I listened for echoes between Jefferson and Milton. Through the lens of Lycidas and Sonnet 23, I probe how Jefferson lived with grief. With the intuition of a poet, I approached these icons of Liberty and Reason with an imaginative ear for the making and keeping...