Anti-Formalist, Unrevolutionary, Illiberal Milton: Political Prose, 1644-1660

216 Pages·2014·1.68 MB·English

by  William Walker

AntiformAlist, UnrevolUtionAry,
illiberAl milton
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Antiformalist, Unrevolutionary,
illiberal milton
Political Prose, 1644–1660
WilliAm WAlker
University of New South Wales, Australia
© William Walker 2014
All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
William Walker has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the british library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Walker, William, 1958–
Antiformalist, unrevolutionary, illiberal milton: political prose, 1644–1660 / by William
Walker.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-4724-3133-2 (hardcover: alk. paper) — isbn 978-1-4724-3134-9 (ebook)
— isbn 978-1-4724-3135-6 (epub)
1. milton, John, 1608–1674—Political and social views. 2. Politics and literature—Great
britain—History—17th century. i. title.
Pr3592.P64W34 2014
821’.4—dc23
2014017436
isbn: 9781472431332 (hbk)
isbn: 9781472431349 (ebk – PDf)
isbn: 9781472431356 (ebk – ePUb)
V
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Note on Texts viii
introduction 1
1 Antiformalist milton 9
2 Unrevolutionary milton 55
3 illiberal milton 105
Conclusion 175
Bibliography 185
Index 201
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Acknowledgements
i thank Duquesne University Press for permission to reprint material from ‘rhetoric,
Passion, and belief in milton’s The Readie and Easie Way’, Milton Studies 52
(2011): 23–57. i thank the University of Chicago Press for permission to reprint
material from ‘Antiformalism, Antimonarchism, and republicanism in milton’s
“regicide tracts”’, Modern Philology 108 (2011): 507–37 © the University of
Chicago. All rights reserved. i thank taylor and francis for permission to reprint
material from ‘milton’s “radicalism” in the tyrannicide tracts’, The European
Legacy 19 (2014): 287–308. this journal’s website is www.tandfonline.com.
note on texts
references to milton’s prose works are usually included in parentheses in the text
and are to page numbers of the works as they appear in Complete Prose Works
of John Milton, 8 vols, ed. Don Wolfe et al. (new Haven: yale University Press,
1953–82). references to the shorter poems are to the poems as they appear in John
milton, Complete Shorter Poems, ed. stella P. revard (oxford: Wiley-blackwell,
2009). references to Paradise Lost are to book and line numbers of the poem as it
appears in Paradise Lost, ed. barbara lewalski (oxford: blackwell, 2007).
introduction
ism, n. A form of doctrine, theory, or practice having, or claiming to have, a
distinctive character or relation: chiefly used disparagingly, and sometimes with
implied reference to schism.
OED
In his great essay, ‘Isms’, the scholar H. M. Höpfl claims that ‘no habit is better
established in the humanities and social sciences, as well as in political speech,
than that of constituting a subject-matter for oneself by means of an –ism’.1 milton
studies over the last century surely bears out this generalisation. Indeed, one
could write a fairly comprehensive history of Milton studies during this period by
identifying the ways in which new subjects and areas of research have arisen as
a result of scholars arguing that milton is the instituteur or exponent of one kind
of –ism or another. That history might begin with an account of the efforts of A. S.
P. Woodhouse and William Haller aimed at demonstrating that Milton subscribed
to the ‘Puritanism’ that played a crucial role in the rise of liberal democracy in
western society. It would also observe that, at about the same time, Douglas Bush
was reaffirming the understanding of Milton as an exponent of not only Christian
humanism but also what Bush had learned from nineteenth-century politicians
and historians to call ‘liberalism’. The history might then move to Zera Fink’s
presentation of Milton as a proponent of classical republicanism, a doctrine that
Fink understood not in terms of a repudiation of monarchy but in terms of a
commitment to the mixed constitution which, by definition, made a place for a
king or regal power. And it would register Christopher Hill’s powerful and highly
influential scholarship on Milton that claimed to show how fruitful it could be to
consider the poet and his writings under the rubric of ‘radicalism’.2
One of the things that qualified Milton as a radical on Hill’s view was that
he rejected dualism and believed in an ontological doctrine Hill refers to as
‘materialism’ and ‘monistic materialism’.3 A remarkably wide range of leading
Miltonists since Hill have found this ‘monism’ at the heart of Milton’s writings.
Though they may disagree on just about everything else, William Kerrigan, John
Rogers, Stephen Fallon, Harold Bloom, Stanley Fish, and John Rumrich agree that
Milton was some kind of monist. Another thing that qualified Milton as a radical
on Hill’s account was his commitment to various heresies, a commitment that had
1 Höpfl, ‘Isms’, 1.
2 See Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty; Haller, The Rise of Puritanism; Haller,
Liberty and Reformation in the Puritan Revolution; Bush, English Literature in the Earlier
Seventeenth Century 1600–1660; Fink, The Classical Republicans; and Hill, Milton and the
English Revolution.
3 Hill, Milton and the English Revolution, 277.