Paradise Lost context

Question 1

Milton’s blindness

Answer 1

When Milton confesses in Paradise Lost book 7 that he exists ‘In darkness, and with dangers compast round’, he not only highlights his sense of isolation in the dangerous Restoration years, but also his blindness.

• Although it hampered him to a certain extent, it also made Milton more resolute and decisive as a poet, as he strove for internal illumination from the Bible

Question 2

Milton’s humanism

Answer 2

Milton worked in the tradition of Christian Humanism, that assumed a deep familiarity with the major documents of Christian religion, of which the Bible was the most important.

Question 3

Milton’s early poem at college

Answer 3

In his early poem At a Vacation Exercise in the College, Milton stressed the sacrifices which the sacerdotal poet, conducting a fastidious and unblemished life, must make in order to write serious heroic verse. It was to this that Milton aspired.

Question 4

Milton and Galileo

Answer 4

Milton became acquainted with Galileo on his Grand Tour, and he is the only contemporary, besides Milton himself, mentioned in Paradise Lost.

Question 5

Milton and liberty of consciousness

Answer 5

Milton’s defence of the liberty of conscience was similar to that of the Leveller writer William Walwyn.

Question 6

Aeropagitica

Answer 6

Milton’s Areopagitica ‘valorized energetic conflict and confrontation’ (Loewenstein) and places great emphasis on the freedom and responsibility of human agents to choose; his epistemology of freedom differing greatly from the severe Calvinist position.

Question 7

Similarity with A Pilgrim’s Progress

Answer 7

Paradise Lost is similar to Bunyan’s A Pilgrim’s Progress as it expresses its author’s sense of social and spiritual adversity towards a culture and age whose secular values he despises and feels alienated from.

Question 8

Rhyming of Paradise Lost

Answer 8

Paradise Lost goes against the fashion of Royalist writers for rhyming, instead following the blank verse of the great classics. Milton scorned the ‘vulgar readers’ who expected it to rhyme.

Question 9

Traditions of courtly love

Answer 9

• Paradise Lost* incorporates both the Petrarchan and Libertine traditions of courtly love poetry. Libertine writers of note include Donne, Marvell and Herrick.
• Satan exploits the Petrarchan desire for fame and a crown to tempt Eve

Question 10

Milton’s religious views in context

Answer 10

Milton’s views on religion are not concrete, and he took public stances on many issues. Paradise Lost highlights many of his ideas concerning religion. The church of the seventeenth century was divided into sects:

• High Anglican
• Moderate Anglican
• Puritan/Presbyterian

Milton was of the latter sect, a denomination that fought for the abolishment of the episcopacy, a view which Milton took further, wishing for the position of priests to also be removed.

Question 11

Milton’s religion at Cambridge

Answer 11

When Milton studied at Cambridge, his college, Christ’s, was a stronghold of Puritanism. Some of the fellows (i.e. tutors and lecturers) of the college got in trouble with the university authorities for attacking some of the practices of worship used in the college chapel and for speaking to each other in English instead of Latin.

Milton had an extreme dislike for the Catholic Church, attacking it often in his writings. He also deeply resented the liturgical innovations of Archbishop Laud, who had subordinated the status of Scripture and individual conscience by emphasising the Church of England’s power and ceremonialism.

• He saw the church’s sacraments, rituals and ornate vestments as nothing short of Popery

Question 12

Milton and the divisions of Protestantism

Answer 12

Milton saw no issues with the division of Protestantism into smaller and smaller sects as he believed this to be a positive step towards being closer to God.

Question 13

Milton and Martin Luther

Answer 13

In the same way as Martin Luther thought, Milton believed that faith was given by God and it cannot, and should not, be intervened upon by the church. He believed the church to be inside every individual, and these thoughts prompted him to break with the Presbyterians before 1650.

Question 14

Anti-Trinitarianism

Answer 14

Milton was an anti-Trinitarian, a belief that was widespread in England amongst radical Puritans during the 1640s and 1650s.

Question 15

Milton’s view on the creation of the universe

Answer 15

Milton did not believe the more orthodox notion that God created the universe ex nihilo, instead concluding that it was created ex deo and ex materia.

Question 16

Milton and Arminianism

Answer 16

Milton shared some theological beliefs with radical Arminianism, most notably his passionate belief in human free will. Areopagitica gave unusual emphasis to human freedom and the responsibility that comes with it, and we can see by Adam’s recognition of the gift of free will that this was central to Milton’s beliefs. Milton had indeed read Arminius’ Pelagian challenge to calvinism which stressed that individuals were free to accept or reject the divine grace needed for salvation.

• There is also a Arminian message in Milton’s assertion that God does indeed foresee events, but humankind may choose to freely to stand or fall

Question 17

Milton’s divergence from Calvinism

Answer 17

Milton found himself diverging from the orthodoxy of Predestination asserted by the traditional Calvinist Puritans of his age - the fundamental notion that men are irrevocably predestined by God to salvation or perdition.

• He also ignored the concept of religious conversion in his writings, which is pivotal for Calvinists

Question 18

Milton’s break from organised religion

Answer 18

After his break from organised religion, Milton practiced his own for of Christianity, close to the Calvinism practiced by the Presbyterians he broke away from, but differing in some ways. It is this highly individual view of Christianity that makes Paradise Lost both personal to Milton and universal.

Question 19

Reason for writing Paradise Lost

Answer 19

Milton wrote Paradise Lost to ‘justifie the wayes of God to men’.

Question 20

Felix culpa

Answer 20

Traditional Christian idea of ‘felix culpa’ is referred to in Paradise lost, but does not take a central place.

Question 21

De Doctrina Christiana

Answer 21

In his vast theological treatise, De Doctrina Christiana, Milton conceded that experience suggested that the world as we know it must be ruled by ‘some evil power’.

Question 22

Lycidas

Answer 22

Milton’s early religious ideas are conveyed in his prophetic poem Lycidas, which David Loewenstein suggests registers Milton’s ‘profound disillusionment with the corrupt Anglican clergy’.

Question 23

Milton’s essays and pamphlets

Answer 23

Milton voiced his political ideas ferociously throughout his lifetime through essays and pamphlets

• He was a strong supporter of freedom of the individual
• He also believed that power corrupts human beings and his distrust of anyone with influence over others led to him to feel that leaders should have to prove their capabilities and their right to lead others

Question 24

Milton’s activism

Answer 24

Milton was an activist, fighting against the rule of Charles I, who he believed to be inept, and for human rights

• For example, Milton argued that Charles was not fit to rule the country because he did not possess superior qualities or virtues that a hero should possess

Question 25

Milton’s opinion of the civil war and interregnum

Answer 25

Milton considered the Civil War and Interregnum years ‘tumultuous times’.

Question 26

Political context of Paradise Lost

Answer 26

Milton wrote Paradise Lost in the last years of the Commonwealth and the first years of the Restoration, a time which saw the steady erosion of all Milton’s political ambitions for the country. This was a transitional period for Milton and the country, and one filled with instability.

• With it came the return of the Church of England, the persecution of the Dissenting sects, and the resumption of strict censorship
• The extraordinary outburst of millenarianism had come to an end

Question 27

Milton after the Restoration

Answer 27

After the restoration, Milton regarded himself as something of a political exile within his own country.

Question 28

1608

Answer 28

Milton born on Bread Street

Question 29

1624

Answer 29

Comus, Milton’s play in praise of chastity and temperance, is performed for the first time at Ludlow Castle

Question 30

1618

Answer 30

Milton tutored at home by Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian who later became identified with the Puritan movement

Question 31

1637

Answer 31

Milton writes the poem Lycidas a a pastoral elegy for his friend Edward King, who drowned

Question 32

1641

Answer 32

Milton publishes the political tract Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in England followed by Of Prelatical Episcopacy

• Here he wrote in service of the Puritan and Parliamentary cause, vigorously attacking the episcopacy and William Laud

Question 33

1642

Answer 33

John Milton marries Mary Powell, however she leaves him after a few weeks

• Despite the acrimonious start to their 10 year marriage, she bore him three daughters and a son before her death in 1652

Question 34

1643

Answer 34

Unhappy in his marriage, Milton publishes a pamphlet condemning England’s divorce laws entitled The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

Question 35

1644

Answer 35

Milton publishes Of Education and Areopagitica

• Of Education advocates educational reform, and is a blend of Renaissance humanism and the contemplative medieval concern with personal redemption
• Areopagitica was written in support of free press, in it Milton aligned himself with the parliamentary cause and began to synthesize the ideal of neo-Roman liberty with that of Christian liberty

Question 36

1649

Answer 36

Milton publishes The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, which defends the right of the people to hold their rulers to account, and implicitly sanctions the regicide

• ‘All men naturally were born free’

Question 37

Eikonoklastes

Answer 37

1649 - explicit defence of the regicide in response to the Eikon Basilike

Question 38

1652

Answer 38

Milton goes blind after years of diminishing eyesight

Question 39

1660

Answer 39

Upon the Restoration, Milton went into hiding for his life while a warrant was written for his arrest and his writings were burned

• A general pardon was eventually issued due to his influential friends, such as Marvell, now an MP

Question 40

1667

Answer 40

Milton completes and publishes Paradise Lost to immediate acclaim and astonishment

Question 41

1674

Answer 41

John Milton dies of gout and is buried in St. Giles Church in the Cripplegate neighborhood of London

• A memorial to Milton is placed in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey