Ar-teest or Man?

Robert Penn Warren on Milton:

His long probings into the theme, the arduous discipline of his studies, his observations of men and affairs, his service to a revolutionary state, were undertaken not for "literary" purposes, not to "gather material" or to achieve "a point of view," but to fulfill what he thought to be his duty to God, to society, and to himself, himself not as a poet, but as a man.  He conceived of himself--so one eminent scholar contends--as a "normal" person, as a person "representative," in the best sense, of society, not as an artist set off against society.  Being an artist was but one way of serving God.

                                   from "Literature as a Symptom" in Who Owns America?