SA appeared in 1671, in the same volume as PR. The date of composition is not known, and Milton’s nephew Edward Phillips says that it ‘cannot certainly be concluded’ (Darbishire (ed.), Early Lives of Milton, p. 75). The traditional dating is 1666–70, but some critics have argued for the late 1640s or early 1650s. Some parts were almost certainly written after the Restoration, for they have a strong topical relevance (see especially lines here).
a verse of Euripides: ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners’, quoted by St Paul from a fragment anciently attributed to the tragic poet Euripides.
Paraeus: David Paraeus (1548–1622), German Calvinist.
Dionysius: Dionysius I of Syracuse (c. 430–367 bc, tyrant from 405) wrote a tragedy that was awarded first prize in the Athenian competition.
Augustus: Suetonius reports that he destroyed his unfinished tragedy Ajax.
Seneca: Milton is correct in his surmise that Seneca the Stoic philosopher (4 bc–ad 65) was the same person as Seneca the tragic poet.
Gregory Nazianzen: Bishop of Constantinople (329–89), supposed author of Christ Suffering.
Martial: Roman poet (c. 40–104) who prefaced several of his Epigrams with prose epistles.
apolelymenon: ‘Freed’ (from regular stanzaic patterns).
alloeostropha: Irregular strophes.
explicit: Simple.
circumscription of time: Aristotle’s ‘unity of time’, whereby the action of a tragedy is confined to one day. Renaissance theorists hardened this into a rule.