After all, this is an extremely pious Puritan. But as late as the 1640s, this was not at all the epic subject that Milton was intending to use.

不管怎么说，弥尔顿是个很虔诚的清教徒，但是到了17世纪，40年代的时候，弥尔顿都根本没想过要写这个主题。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

We looked at its relation to the new career that John Milton ended up assuming in the late 1630s: this new career as a polemical writer of political prose.

我们研究了它与17世纪30年代末,弥尔顿最终以幻想告终的新事业：,这个写政治散文的宣传性作家的新事业。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选