The Art of Reasoning Well: Ramist Logic at Work in Paradise Lost

Abstract

This article discusses the influence that Milton's education at Christ's College, Cambridge, had upon his poetry in Paradise Lost. Historicist criticism of Milton's works has tended to focus on political and theological concerns, whilst other approaches, where logic has been considered, have done so according to its current meaning over an early-modern conception. This article aims to reorientate current views of the role of logic in early-modern thought by examining definitions of logic and rhetoric within early-modern manuals; specifically it focuses on Ramist manuals, as Milton's own Art of Logic was based on the precepts of the French logician and pedagogical reformer, Petrus Ramus. Expanding on this, the article explores bibliographic material, including handwritten marginalia and printed paratextual apparatus, to suggest how these texts were physically approached in this period. The article argues that the education individuals received in logic imbued within them a way of approaching and analysing any and every subject at hand including literature, defining both how literary texts were written in this period and also how they were read and understood by their audience. Having established how logic was conceived of in the early-modern period and how this functioned, the article concludes by putting these precepts to work in a practical way, using them as a means of analysing Milton's poetry in an historically appropriate way. In doing so, the article argues for a new methodological approach within Milton criticism, using early-modern logical method as a means of reaching historically sound stylistic appreciations of Milton's works.