Images of “Licence” in Milton's Sonnet XII

Abstract

The publication of the divorce tracts earned for Milton the reputation of a radical whose views favoring the dissolubility of marriage in certain circumstances were in opposition to the basic moral laws of Christian society. Following the appearance of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce in 1643, he was attacked as a “lewd” writer guilty of advocating “libertinism” and accused of encouraging men and women to abandon their lawful spouses.1 In the preface to his translation of The Judgment of Martin Bucer (1644), Milton admits that he had been denounced for setting forth a doctrine that was “licentious” and “scandalous.“2 He felt that the opinions of the prestigious Bucer in favor of divorce would strengthen his own position, but the appearance of the translation did little if anything to stem the tide; his writings continued to be criticized as “corrupt and wicked” and “little less than blasphemy.“3 After the simultaneous publication in March 1645 of the Colasterion (a counter‐attack on his opponents) and the Tetrachordon (an account of the four scriptural passages bearing on divorce), the attacks escalated. He was treated as the prophet of a new heretical sect, the Divorcers; his views on loosening the bonds of marriage were said to constitute an incitement to “inordinate lust”; there was even a rumor that Milton had “two or three wives living”; and at the Restoration he was still being castigated as a “Christian libertine.“4