We’ve all heard about the classics and assume they’re

Cultural context

. Two great cultural streams combine in the work of 

Milton. One is the Renaissance, a rebirth of classical culture and of the 

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intellectual outlook known as humanism (the striving to perfect all human 

possibilities in this life). The Renaissance valued beauty and the arts very 

highly, and its ethical outlook stressed the importance of reason and order. 

In England the Protestant Reformation went hand-in-hand with the Renais-

sance. Leading traits of the Reformation included acceptance of the Bible as 

the final authority for belief and conduct, and living by the premise of the 

primacy of the spiritual. The English branch of the Reformation is known 

as Puritanism, which got its name chiefly from the desire of its adherents to 

purify the Church of England of its remaining vestiges of Catholicism. All 

Renaissance writers assumed that there were three main topics about which 

to write: God, people, and nature.