“At all events, Milton was a Puritan born, and bred at the Puritan University, Cambridge, one of those Puritans out of whom came the civilization of our New England, and by that token essentially the prevailing civilization of our whole American Commonwealth” (Osgood, Poetry as a Means of Grace, p. 82).
Although there are a host of qualifications that must go with this statement — about Milton personally, about Puritans, about Cambridge, about New England, and about America — it remains essentially sound. And poetry was at the heart of this Puritanism.