Milton's View Research Articles

Milton's Views of Marriage

The paper mainly discusses about Milton’s views of marriage.The research direction of this paper belongs to the literature. So the study method of the paper is literature research. John Milton, as one of the most controversial poets in the British history, has a great influence to the later literature and thoughts and so on. One of the reasons why Milton is controversial is that some of his works are against the laws and morals of traditional British marriages which are mythologized by the Church.Milton’s views of marriage reveal that Milton, as a humanist, can think highly of the personal nature and emphasis the secular happiness. At the same time, this is also an important part of Milton’s views of freedom and has some practical significance.

Peer Review An Insult to the Reader and to Society: Milton's View

Peer review is, with near universality, now insisted upon as required pre-certification before a work can be published — allegedly, and questioningly, serving as a stamp of approval that assures the reader of its quality, validity, and accuracy. Today’s peer review is different in substance, but not in form, from the pre-publication censorship that so enraged Milton and led him to write his _Areopagitica_. The position he took nearly four hundred years ago reminds us that pre-publication restraint is the expres-sion of the interlinked fears of nonconformity, of the vulnerability of professional territorial turf, of disturbance of the status quo, and fear of independence of thought and resulting innovation. We are reminded that the principal target of intellectual suppression is the creative mind.

The Politics of King David in Early Modern English Verse

This article examines the political implications of early modern English verse dealing with the Hebrew king David and of English translations of the Psalms. The article first considers John Milton’s minimization of David in Paradise Lost , before turning to 1) a survey of how and why David was praised or blamed by various poets, and 2) a case study of translations of the penitential Psalm 6 by Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, King James VI/I, and Milton. The article concludes by returning to Milton and argues that insofar as the Stuarts and their supporters associated themselves with the poetry, penance, and royal power of David, Milton views them as retrograde to the progress of human and sacred history, and thus attempts to consign David’s royal example to oblivion. Therefore, a significant but understudied amount of English verse, dealing with David and his sin, is shown to be an early modern mode of poetical and political analysis.

The divorce tracts of John Milton: texts and contexts

In a span of only 18 months from August 1643 to March 1645 John Milton published five tracts on divorce: The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, a much enlarged edition of that tract, The Judgement of Martin Bucer, Tetrachordon, and Colasterion. This book presents all five full-length pamphlets and documents in order to fully represent Milton's views on divorce, liberty, gender, and social institutions. Van den Berg and Howard also present Milton's work in the context of his contemporaries by including four other publications that represent the first wave of engagement with Milton's divorce tracts: the anonymously written An Answer to a Book, intituled, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1644); William Prynne's Twelve Considerable Serious Questions (1644); Herbert Palmer's The Glasse of God's Providence (1644); and Daniel Featley's The Dippers Dipt (1645). The current volume is unique in that it is the first in the field to showcase Milton's writings on divorce side by side with these related documents, and it provides the first modern transcription of An Answer. Milton's argument that divorce could be to the good of both sexes makes this often intimidating writer and his era accessible and compelling to contemporary readers. Indeed, his claim for divorce on the basis of mutual incompatibility established the groundwork for the justification of divorce in late twentieth century Anglo-American law. Milton's rhetorical methods from cogent advocacy to speculative commentary and poignant vignettes, from citation of authorities and carefully reasoned biblical exegesis to defensive vituperation demonstrate the range of debate in seventeenth century pamphlet warfare.

Sharon Achinstein and Elizabeth Sauer, Milton and TolerationMilton and Toleration. Edited by Sharon Achinstein and Elizabeth Sauer . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xi+320.

<i>Sharon Achinstein and Elizabeth Sauer,</i> Milton and Toleration<i>Milton and Toleration</i>. Edited by Sharon Achinstein and Elizabeth Sauer . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xi+320.

‘Bodying Truth’: Mediation, Prophecy, and Sacrament in Milton's Early Prose

Despite his assertion that divine truth is not mediated by the material world but is instead revealed by “reason” and “true eloquence,” John Milton regularly writes prose texts that claim to mediate God's will and that often fail to sustain coherent arguments. This essay draws on post-Reformation sacramental theology to argue that Milton views himself as a “sacramental prophet,” a figure who mediates God through his own person and through texts that are prophetic performances closely identifiable with the author himself. As a sacramental mediator, Milton frees himself from the burden of sustaining consistent arguments. Instead, he offers himself and his prose texts as embodiments of divine truth immediately apprehensible to those that partake of his literary corpus.

The Innovation of Milton’s Machiavellian Son

Classical republicans are on the whole wary of religion. Some, like Thomas Jefferson, are agnostics who want it rigorously segre gated from public life. Others, like Niccolo Machiavelli, are sus pected atheists who value it only as an extension of state power. Even John Milton, the rare republican to dissent from this secular perspec tive, seems unintentionally to confirm that republics cannot also be theocracies. When admirers of Milton's politics explore his theology, they prefer to focus upon Satan,1 Eve,2 and Chaos3 as reservoirs of free dom. For when scholars attend to Milton's God, the deity that they dis cover seems too rule-bound to permit the self-determination necessary for republican virtue. In Milton's Good God, Dennis Danielson describes Milton's view of liberty by arguing: given God's offer of divine grace, man is free either to reject it and use his own innate power to sin, or else to accept it and use the power received from God to refrain from sinning. . . . [S]o far as man is concerned, sin is by commission and moral virtue by omission4 Joan Bennett arrives at a similar view by aligning

“A FREE AND OPEN ENCOUNTER”: MILTON AND THE MODERN READER

ABSTRACT Literature embodies not universal or essential truths, but ideas and values which, like the reader's own, are conditioned and limited by history. Thus, Milton's views of authority relations, power, marriage, kinship relations, dominance and subordination, and his use of typification to define normative and deviant behavior, are subject to evaluation, rejection, or acceptance in the light of modern conceptions, drawn partly from anthropological and sociological research. In Satan and his women characters, Milton struggles to reconcile mutuality, hierarchy, and individual action. Eve's relation to Satanic deviancy, her learning of prescribed roles, and her acceptance of familial and domestic responsibilities define the woman's sphere in Paradise Lost. Similarly circumscribed, the Lady in Comus affirms community, sociability, and culture. The portrait of Dalila defines proper conjugal relations in terms of female subordination and service. Besides illuminating historical attitudes toward women, these characterizations compel the reader to question the presence of “universal truths” in Milton or any literature.

THE DOUBLE TIME SCHEME IN "PARADISE REGAINED"

ABSTRACT Paradise Regained in part depends on Milton's manipulations of two very different concepts of time and on the resulting interreactions of alternate chronologies for divine and human history. From one point of view, time is linear in its nature, and on the line are unique moments, never repeatable, when God chose to intervene in history. From another point of view, time is not linear but cyclic, always and necessarily repetitive as recurrent intervals replace one another. Milton employs linear time, since the Wilderness Temptation of Christ was a unique event, but he adds other moments to the line, some of which are unorthodox. Milton also uses repetitive time in an unusual way since his cycles spin round with enormous rapidity. The point is that linear and cyclic time schemes, divine plans and human experience, must be compatible with one another for the work of salvation to occur and for paradise to be regained. If so, then Milton's views in the poem, however idiosyncratically, approach those of the Anglican church. Indeed, the church's prayer for the Wilderness Temptation supplies a surprisingly satisfactory statement of one of Milton's meanings.

Milton's Dichotomy of “Judaism” and “Hebraism”

Milton scholars have long been aware of inconsistencies in Milton's views regarding the Old Testament and the Jews. He shows, concurrently, “powerful judaistic motifs” and “anti-judaistic motifs.” He advocated liberty of conscience but was silent during the debate on the Readmission of the Jews. Milton's views may have evolved or changed but he was doctrinally consistent. He dichotomized the Old Testament constellation of personae and concepts into “Judaic” motifs which he rejected and “Hebraic” motifs which he adopted. He took Paul's antithesis of the Law (the Flesh) and the Gospel (the Spirit) and applied it within the Hebrew Bible itself. The “Judaic” complex is that which is human, relevant to the Jews as a people inclined to servitude, and the “external” aspect of the Mosaic Law, also a form of bondage. The “Hebraic” complex is divine, universal, and the “internal” Scripture, equated with freedom and. ultimately, Christian Liberty. The “Hebraic” motif supplies a continuity for the Scriptures. The dichotomy accords with Milton's philosophy (Plato's and Aristotle's dualisms) and with his methodology of structural and imagistic contrasts. The dichotomy explains the presence of “judaistic” and “anti-judaistic” motifs as well as his “reluctance” to grant the Jews freedom of worship.

Samson's Catharsis

ABSTRACT In Paradise Lost, Michael shows Adam future history in a series of dramatic scenes, recalling Milton's view of Revelation as a tragic drama. Adam, the audience, undergoes a catharsis which turns his “terrour” and “compassion” to joy and wonder as the sin deriving from Adam himself yields to the redemption effected by Christ. In Samson this redemptive catharsis centers on the hero. Epigraph and epistle include both possible meanings of catharsis: purgation and lustratio (sacrifice and ablution). Both Donne and Bunyan make purgation the symbol of repentance. So Milton describes Samson's sin and punishment in dietary and medical terms. His cure uses like against like, passion to purge passion. Samson's grief, pity, and fear are raised only to be tempered and reduced in the three central acts by Manoa (grief), Dalila (pity), Harapha and the Officer (fear). But the efficacy of this purgation depends on a lustratio, the sacrifice of Christ, of which Samson's death is a dramatic and ritual mimesis. Samson's fall thus conforms him to the image of the first Adam; his sacrificial self-offering renews him in the image of the second, completing the pattern of human history and of Milton's three great poems.

Adam, Eve, and The Fall in Paradise Lost

The justification in Paradise Lost of the ways of God to men depends as much on Milton's dramatic and psychological motivation of the Fall as on its theological structure. The designed contrasts between Adam's and Eve's reactions on first awakening to life absolve Eve of the usual charge of vanity by establishing her as a feeling in relation to Adam as a ratiocinating being. Under the influence of Satan's venom Eve fails in love to Adam and then to God. But in Milton's view Adam is the faultier of the two because of his conscious failure to assert the absolute authority of his reason over her misguided feelings. Milton formally depends upon Paul's statement that Adam fell undeceived, but in his psychological motivation of the three key episodes of the Fall he differs from the usual interpretation of the Church Fathers that Paul meant only that Satan had not deceived Adam directly as he had deceived Eve. Milton thus reconciles the apparent paradox that Adam was not deceived but instead foolishly overcome by female charm. The scene in which he weakly yields permission is a direct foreshadowing of his acceptance of the apple since both contain the same false rationalization of his unwillingness to accept the responsibilities of his superior wisdom and its proper exercise in command.

Written Records and Truths of Spirit in “Paradise Lost”

ABSTRACT Milton considered scripture (“written records pure”) man's fundamental source of truth. His fundamentalism is qualified by the belief that scripture must be read in the light of the Spirit and that the truth reveals itself in different ways to different readers. Hence his treatment of Creation in Book VII departs emphatically from the surface meaning of the biblical account. There is a strong suggestion that Creation is begun by a sexual impregnation of unformed matter, followed by an organic, almost evolutionary development of the visible world. The development completes itself in man, whose sexuality in Book IV is the culmination of a motif that begins with the initial impregnation of Chaos by the Spirit. Milton's view is similar to views found in Philo Judaeus, the pseudo-Dionysius, and several Renaissance Platonists. It illustrates the latitude of interpretation permitted those who read scripture in the light of the Spirit.

ABSTRACTS

Purvis E. Boyette. “Milton's Eve and the Neoplatonic Graces.”Purvis E. Boyette. “Something More about the Erotic Motive in PL.”Murray W. Bundy. “Milton's Exalted Man.”Essays in American and English Literature presented to Bruce Robert McElderry, Jr.John W. Crawford. “Another Biblical Allusion in PL.”Roy C. Flannagan and John Arthos. “Introduction.”The Life of Adam.French Folge. “The Action of SA.” Essays in American and English Literature presented to Bruce Robert McElderry, Jr.Neil H. Hertz. “Wordsworth and the Tears of Adam.”Merritt Y. Hughes. “Milton's Limbo of Vanity.”Th’ upright Heart and PureWilliam B. Hunter, Jr. “The Heresies of Satan.”Th’ upright Heart and PureWilliam B. Hunter, Jr. “Satan as CometMaurice Kelley. “The Composition of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana—The First Stage.”Th' upright Heart and PureEdward LeComte. “Milton as Satirist and Wit.“John M. Major. “Milton's View of Rhetoric.John M. Major. “PR and Spenser's Legend of Holiness.“Lawrence J. Nieman. “The Nature of the Temptations in PR Books I and II.“Coleman O. Parsons. “Classical Humanism in Milton.“C. A, Patrides. “The Salvation of Satan.“C. A. Patrides. “John Milton; The Poet who Gave us Paradise.“B. Rajan. “The Constant Core.“B. Rajan. “Jerusalem and Athens: The Temptation of Learning in PR.” Th' upright Heart and PureJohn T. Shawcross. “The Metaphor of Inspiration in PL.” Th' upright Heart and PureJohn T. Shawcross. “A Note on Milton's Hobson Poems.“Wayne Shumaker. “PL and the Italian Epic Tradition.” Th' upright Heart and PureSister Ancilla Marie Flory, S.B.S. “Free Movement and Baroque Perspective in Milton's Arcopagitica.”John M. Steadman. “The Tragic Glass: Milton, Minturno and the Condition Humaine.“Kester Svendsen. “Milton and the Hundred Articles Against Alexander More.“Robert West. “Milton as Philosophical Poet.“B. A. Wright. “A Note on Milton's Diction.“Roger B. Wilkenfeld. “Theoretics or Polemics? Milton Criticism and the ‘Dramatic Axiom’.“

Kairos in Paradise Regained: The Divine Plan

The divine promise in Paradise Lost that in the fullness of time Christ would be sent to redeem mankind is also Milton's promise for the poem Paradise Regained: the son will be Made flesh, time shall be, of Virgin Seed. 1 Paradise Regained is based on the fact that the set amount of time has passed, and man's redemption can occur. In God's plan for the world, everything will occur at its proper moment, when time shall be. Such moments, designated for certain significant events, were called kairoi by the Greeks and the New Testament writers, the most famous biblical reference being John vii. 6: My time (kairos) is not yet come. Milton not only has Christ speak these same words to Satan, he interweaves the theme of kairos throughout the poem, mentioning a special kind of time more than twice as often as in Paradise Lost,2 and making it the cornerstone of Christ's rejections of the temptations. Satan's constant effort is to get Christ to act before his time or kairos, and thus pervert God's plan. An analysis of Milton's views of time and history explains his use of the concept of kairos. For a sense of ultimate meaning in history, men must believe that time has a direction, that it is going somewhere. The Greeks believed only in cyclicism, the recurrence of everything. The future would be like the past; therefore, no single event could have universal significance.3 The Hebrews had a different outlook. Because of their belief in creatio ex nihilo, they could conceive of a definite beginning, with a consequent end in the common image of a line of time. They saw history as an epiphany of God, and Christians adopted the same view. Under one God, revelation occurs only once and is not repeated in another cycle

Milton's Arianism Again Considered

Since 1825, when Bishop Sumner issued the first edition of John Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, the Arianism of that treatise has become an all but unanimously accepted fact. Although reviewers of Sumner's two quarto volumes divided in praising or lamenting Milton's tenets on the Trinity, they united in pronouncing them unorthodox and Arian; and later scholars have generally accepted this nineteenth-century verdict. In 1959, consequently, students of Milton were surprised when William B. Hunter, Jr., under the title “Milton's Arianism Reconsidered,” devoted some twenty-five pages to the argument that “we may assert positively that Milton was not an Arian” even though “modern judges are unanimous in branding him one.” And more recently, Roland M. Frye, praising Mr. Hunter's work, has gone on to state that “Milton could never be convicted, before a fair and competent theological court, of trinitarian heresy in Paradise Lost.” With these assertions of the orthodoxy of Milton and his epic I cannot agree; and at the cost of controversy with two close friends, I must argue 1) that Mr. Hunter is wrong in believing that Milton's view of the Son accords with that stated in the Nicene Creed; and 2) that Mr. Frye violates an established principle of textual interpretation when he denies the Arianism of Paradise Lost.

Milton's View of Education

Milton's View of Education

Milton's Arianism Reconsidered

When in 1825 Bishop Charles Sumner published the text and his translation of Milton's long-lost theological study, the Christian Doctrine, the results were in a way disastrous for the reputation of the poet. Instead of being the great composer of the orthodox epic of Protestantism, Milton became in the eyes of the nineteenth century and even of our own day the heretic who advocated the belief in an unequal Trinity—a heresy originally associated with the fourth century church leader Arius. In the light especially of the fifth chapter of the Christian Doctrine, critics reread Paradise Lost and discovered that this same doctrine was implied in passages of the poem which had been accepted for a century and a half as entirely orthodox. The shock to critical and religious sensibilities was considerable; Milton's fame underwent an eclipse from which it perhaps has never really recovered. Although our own century may be less susceptible to disturbance from the presentation of heterodox views, much the same conception of Milton continues; all critics echo Masson's stern judgment that Milton's views of the nature of Christ “are expressly and emphatically those of high Arianism.”

The Problem of 17th Century Soteriology in Reference to Milton

THE PROBLEM OF 17TH CENTURY SOTERIOLOGY IN REFERENCE TO MILTON Milton's De Doctrina Christiana can hardly be dismissed as a "minor Latin work"1. Even though the twentieth century fails to value it as Milton did — as his "best and richest possession2" — we must still recognize it as "another, and oftentimes clearer, statement of what Milton considered the basic argument of his poem (Paradise Lost)"8. The De Doctrina Christiana "reads like a doctrinal commentary on that work"4 and as such, stands as an invaluable and indispensable aid to our comprehension of his two epics of paradise. To present here even the main features of Milton's system of theology as found in the treatise, along with its influences and possible sources, and how these features are represented in the Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained is manifestly impossible for a study of this limited size. Consequently , I have limited the analysis to one specific doctrine, the doctrine of Soteriology, giving first the traditional orthodox concept, and the Renaissance heresies concerning the problem, and finally its literal interpretation as found in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. There remains, then, to indicate the general outline of the chapters to follow. The material of Chapter I treats the Renaissance concept of Soteriology with references to Lutheranism, Calvinism (Perkins and Ames), Socinianism (Ochino and Servetus), Arminianism and Anglicanism . This chapter does not concern itself with parallel passages, verbal echoes, or the attempt to prove specific borrowings from particular theologians and commentaries on the part of Milton for his treatment of the problem of Soteriology. The purpose is not to establish what may strictly be called indebtedness, but rather to suggest that the doctrines of certain Renaissance theologians furnished the milieu for Milton's view of Soteriology. Chapter II treats of Milton's doctrine of Soteriology as found in chapters xiv, xv, and xvi of the De Doctrina 1 A. M. Witherspoon, "Milton Complete," The Saturday Review of Literature, VIII (1931). 33· 8 John Milton, Christian Doctrine, trans. Charles Sumner (London, 1825). 8 Maurice Kelley, This Great Argument (Princeton, 1941), P- 1994 James Hanford, A Milton Handbook (New York, 1947). P- 122. 48 Soteriology in Reference to Milton49 Christiana5. The concluding chapter presents the more important elements of Milton's Soteriology and their literal interpretation as paralleled in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Concerning the parallels, I make no claim to exhaustiveness. I have set down those parallels which I feel are most pertinent, and a number proportionate to a thesis of this limited size. All references to the De Doctrina Christiana in this concluding chapter are from the Sumner translation for the purpose of indicating more clearly the close relationship existing between the treatise and the epics. CHAPTER I ERRONEOUS CONCEPTS OF SOTERIOLOGY IN THE RENAISSANCE During the Reformation, the harmony of the mystery of Soteriology had become obscured. In many cases the penal element had received undue emphasis and importance. Catholic preachers made use of expressions which were Lutheran in origin, and justly deserving of the strictures which they have received from Catholic theologians. Bossuet speaks of a vengeful God who wages an open war against Christ. "Je vois au contraire un Dieu qui se venge et qui exige ce qui lui est dû de son propre Fils"1, and again, "Dieu montre à son Fils ce visage, il lui montre cet oeil enflammé. . . Le visage de Dieu sur ceux qui font mal: c'est le visage de la justice"2. Bourdaloue imagines a sort of conflict between God's justice and mercy; one about to strike, the other holding back the sustaining sword. "C'est sous cette lèpre du péché que la justice de Dieu l'envisage comme un objet digne de toutes ses vengences. Voilà pourquoi elle s'arme contre lui, pourquoi elle le poursuit le glaive à la main. . ."8 Luther briefly designates as the office and work of Jesus Christ "Our Redemption" (Erlösung). This is the deliverance from sin, death, hell and all misery — from the entire state into which we have been brought by the sin of Adam4. Justification is conferred upon man by God's grace. 8 AU references to these three chapters are...

John Milton's Views on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

John Milton's Views on the Teaching of Foreign Languages