[originaltext] When John Milton, writer of Paradise Lost, entered Cambridge

When John Milton, writer of Paradise Lost, entered Cambridge University in 1625, he was already skilled in Latin after seven years of studying it as his second language at St. Paul’s school, London. Like all English boys who prepared for college in grammar school, he had learned not only to read Latin but also to speak and write it fluently and correctly. His pronunciation of Latin was English, however, and seemed to have sounded strange to his friends when he later visited Italy. Schoolboys gained their skill in Latin in a bitter way. They memorized rules to make learning by heart easier. They first made a word-for-word translation and then a liberal translation into English. As they increased their skill, they translated their English back into Latin without referring to the book and then compared their translation with the original. The schoolmaster was always at hand to encourage them. After several years of study, the boys began to write compositions in imitation of the Latin writers they read. And as they began to read Latin poems, they began to write poems in Latin. Because Milton was already a poet at ten, his poems were quite good. While the poems painfully put together by other boys were far from being satisfactory. During the seven years Milton spent at the university, he made constant use of his command of Latin. He wrote some excellent Latin poems which he published among his works in 1645.
16. What do we learn about Milton?
17. Why did Milton’s pronunciation of Latin sound strange?
18. Why were Milton’s poems in Latin better than the other boys?