Context Flashcards
English Civil War date and sides
-1642-49
-The Royalists supported the King and the Parliamentarians supported Parliament
Effects of Civil war
King Charles I was executed and Cromwell took over as ‘Lord Protector’ creating a republic
Charles II changes
Restored the monarchy but was eager to achieve a new settlement between the monarchy and Parliament - a mutual though wary respect emerged between the two institutions
Gender roles
Woman legally owned by their husbands upon marriage, seen as inferior and in some instances evil
Catholic view of the fall
Caused by the devil
Reformed Protestant view of the fall
Desired by God in order to make mankind dependent on Christ’s salvation
Calvinism
Believed that individual faith gave them access to salvation
Milton’s arguments about divorce
Became a pioneer for the right to divorce, arguing that any incompatibility is justified grounds for divorce
Milton’s views on marriage
Conversation and mental companionship are important in marriage, and is not necessarily for procreation
Milton’s relationships
-Mary Powell
-Katherine Woodcock
-Elizabeth Minshull
Milton’s religious label
Highly individual and complex view of Christianity, Presbyterian, Anti-Catholic
View on religious institutions
-Opposed them, believed that each individual should be his own church without any establishment to encumber him
-Called for the removal of bishops and priests
-Believed that the individual and his conscience was a more powerful way of interpreting the Word of God than the example set by a church
Accusations against Charles I
Insufficiently supportive of the Protestant cause, having Catholic sympathies, sliding the Church into Catholic ritualism
View on power
Corrupts humans, distrusted anyone who claimed power over others without proving their right to do so
Political support
Supported the rise of Cromwell and the Parliamentarians
Job for Cromwell
Secretary of Foreign Tongues, required to justify and support the new Republic with Pamphlets
Ultimate view on Cromwell
As unwilling to share power with Parliament, lost confidence and trust in him
View on social hierarchy
-Beloved in a social hierarchy in which people would obey leaders and leader served people
-Yet he felt that the hierarchy he lived under was corrupt
Judgement based on his blindness
Contemporaries thought he was punished with blindness for his defence of regicide
The Age of Reason
A premium was placed on the importance of human reason and on an empirical philosophy that held that knowledge about the world was through the senses and by applying reason to what we take in through our senses
Milton’s grand tour of continental Europe
1638-9
Aeropagitica
Freedom of the press pamphlet, against censorship (1644)
Restoration of the Monarchy
1660
Date when Milton was completely blind
1652
What was Milton’s family like
Wealthy, his father disconnected from his family because of religious
Schooling life
-Extremely studious
-He went to Christ’ College Cambridge
-He had a private tutor
What was Milton’s Doctrine where he voiced his views on marriage called?
Doctrine of discipline and divorce
Epithets
A descriptive term which has a common usage in the poem
Angel that visited Milton
Urania
Augustine’s theodicy
Evil is the absence of good, so good is the absence of evil
Terror Incognita
Unknown territory, fear of female pleasure
