John Milton: A Literary Life

229 Pages·1995·23.898 MB·English

by  Cedric C. Brown (auth.)

JOHN MILTON
Macmillan Literary Lives
General Editor: Richard Dutton, Professor of English,
Lancaster University
This series offers stimulating accounts of the literary careers of the
most admired and influential English-language authors. Volumes
follow the outline of writers' working lives, not in the spirit of
traditional biography, but aiming to trace the professional, pub
lishing and social contexts which shaped their writing. The role and
status of 'the author' as the creator of literary texts is a vexed issue
in current critical theory, where a variety of social, linguistic and
psychological approaches have challenged the old concentration on
writers as specially gifted individuals. Yet reports of 'the death of
the author' in literary studies are (as Mark Twain said of a pre
mature obituary) an exaggeration. This series aims to demonstrate
how an understanding of writers' careers can promote, for students
and general readers alike, a more infonned historical reading of
their works.
Published titles
Morris Beja Michael O'Neill
JAMES JOYCE PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Cedric C. Brown Leonee Ormond
JOHN MILTON ALFRED TENNYSON
Richard Dutton George Parfitt
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE JOHN DONNE
Jan Fergus Gerald Roberts
JANE AUSTEN GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Paul Hammond Felicity Rosslyn
JOHN DRYDEN ALEXANDER POPE
W. David Kay Tony Sharpe
BEN JONSON T. S. ELIOT
Mary Lago Gary Waller
E. M. FORSTER EDMUND SPENSER
Joseph McMinn Cedric Watts
JONATHAN SWIFT JOSEPH CONRAD
Alasdair D.F. Macrae Tom Winnifrith and Edward Chitham
W. B. YEATS CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTE
Kerry McSweeney John Worthen
GEORGE ELIOT (MARIAN EVANS) D. H. LAWRENCE
John Mepham
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Forthcoming titles
Ronald Ayling Ira Nadel
SEAN O'CASEY EZRA POUND
Deirdre Coleman Angela Smith
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Peter Davison Grahame Smith
GEORGE ORWELL CHARLES DICKENS
James Gibson Janice Thaddeus
THOMAS HARDY FANNY BURNEY
Kenneth Graham John Williams
HENRY JAMES WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Philip Mallett Barry Windeatt
RUDYARD KIPLING GEOFFREY CHAUCER
David Wykes
EVELYN WAUGH
John Milton
A Literary Life
Cedric C. Brown
Head of the Department of English
University of Reading
~
MACMILlAN
© Cedric C. Brown 1995
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1995
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First published 1995 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
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and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-42516-9 ISBN 978-1-349-24150-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24150-7
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95
Contents
List of Abbreviations vii
Introduction ix
1 Education: the 'Vacation Exercise' and Early Latin
Poetry 1
2 Cultivating the Self: the 'Nativity Ode',
Petrarchism, and the Social Poet 19
3 Occasions, Impulses, and the Sense of Vocation:
from' Arcades' to 'Lycidas' 35
4 Italy, Politics, and the Voice of Authority 59
5 Cultural Renewal in a Time of Free Speaking 86
6 Servant and Defender of the Commonwealth 118
7 Prophet to the Commonwealth 134
8 Paradise Lost: Spiritual Strengthening for Adverse
Times 155
9 Last Days: Patience and Monuments 182
Further Reading 208
Index 210
v
List of Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in references in the text and in
the notes:
1645 Poems of Mr John Milton ... (London, 1645). Milton's first
collection of occasional poems. It has been reproduced
several times in facsimile in modem times, and can also be
found in F below.
1673 Poems, &c, upon Several Occasions ... (London, 1673).
Expanded and revised collection of occasional poems; can
be found in F below.
C The Works of John Milton, general editor F. A. Patterson,
18 vols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931-8).
CF The Poems of John Milton, ed. J. Carey & A. Fowler (London:
Longmans, 1968; revised 1971).
o
The Early Lives of Milton, ed. Helen Darbishire (London,
1932).
F John Milton's Complete Poetical Works in Photographic
Facsimile with Critical Apparatus, ed. H. F. Fletcher, 4 vols
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1943).
LR J. Milton French, The Life Records of John Milton, 5 vols
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1949-58).
MQ Milton Quarterly
P William R. Parker, The Life of John Milton, 2 vols (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1968).
TMS John Milton, Poems, Reproduced in Facsimile from the
Manuscript in Trinity College, Cambridge, with a Transcript
(Menston: Scolar Press, 1972).
VC A Variorum Commentary on the Poems ofJ ohn Milton, various
editors, 4 vols to date (London: Routledge, 1970-5).
Y The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. D. M. Wolfe
and others, 8 vols (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1953-82).
Unless otherwise signified, texts of the poems are taken from CF
and prose from Y.
vii
Introduction
This book is an introduction to the whole literary work of Milton in
the context of his life. I hope it is of practical value in that way, all
the more so since there is I believe no such comprehensive one
volume, affordable volume on the market. One must say, to begin
with, however, that there is an embarrassment of materials: Milton's
literary output was very large and this book does not simply offer
an introduction to the famous poems often studied or anthologised.
Some ninety poems find mention (but some only as groups) as well
as some thirty prose tracts (although some only briefly) and there is
also use of letters and unpublished documents. What is more, his
life is unusually well documented for a seventeenth-century writer,
in fact splendidly documented when compared to a case like that of
Shakespeare. The potential scale of this book was very large and
some means of selectivity have had to be found for a study of rela
tively modest nature.
I should also make clear that this is not a traditional 'life and
works'. Milton's career as a writer is treated historically, both in the
sense of recovering something of the range of Milton's writing as it
appeared during his lifetime and also in the sense of treating the
works in their historical context. Throughout, texts are treated as
acts of persuasion to their contemporary audiences and are located
within the discourses of the time. The further matter, of how the
meanings of Milton's texts were constantly reformed by readers of
later centuries, is unfortunately beyond the limits of this study.
Despite the fact that Milton's stated intention was to furnish
writings 'doctrinal to ... [his] nation' (Y i 815) and that his writings
are most often encountered within the context of the academic
study of English, this book is not limited to works in the English
language. When Milton wrote to an academic audience as a young
man or when in his mature years he championed the English
Commonwealth on the stage of European scholarship, he composed
in Latin; when he wrote to some literary friends he used Italian, to
others, again, Latin; and very occasionally he revived his Greek
composition. Here, works are treated according to what seems to
have been their significance at the time, in whatever language they
were first written. Translations of quotations are provided.
ix
x Introduction
Restrictions of range should also be explained. For example,
although the concept of the profession of the writer is broad enough
that brief mention can be made of Milton's editing and publishing
of others' texts (like the so-called Racovian Catechism in 1652 or a
book attributed to Sir Walter Ralegh which he published for the
public good in 1658) and passing mention is made of official writing
he had to do as Secretary to the Commonwealth government, I have
not been able to take on any of Milton's (sometimes disputed)
documents in State Papers. Also, needless to say, some works have
not received the coverage they are due and I am painfully aware of
the arbitrary nature of some choices of emphasis.
For all that, the wide range of texts has permitted some unusual
emphases, if one compares this with more selective accounts of
Milton's career. For example, for all that they are rarely studied, sets
of psalm paraphrases are given some prominence, the Italian son
nets are read as a series having to do with a love affair with Italian
culture, and accomplished Latin poems, like 'Ad Patrern', 'Mansus',
and 'Epitaphiurn Darnonis' are given full weight for their urbanity as
well as their revelations of literary ambition. It will also be noticed
that I give large prominence to Milton's very accomplished and
varied sonnets, especially those written in his middle age. The
sonnets usually have well-developed significance as self
presentational documents and they often make important
statements at key moments of personal or national decision.
Nevertheless, the familiar major works find their due place, often
by being highlighted within the more general or comprehensive
coverage of a chapter. Individual works or groups of works are
encompassed as follows. The first chapter, covering the writing up
to 1628, features at some length not only the well-known early
verses 'At a Vacation Exercise', but also the whole college enter
tainment of which it formed a part, because this student work gives
definition of a sense of an individual 'career' or vocation, and also
demonstrates even at this early stage many facets of Milton's arts of
self-presentation. The second chapter, following the years 1628-32,
gives special place to the obviously vocational 'Nativity Ode' at the
beginning, and the twin poems 'L' Allegro' and 'II Penseroso' are
used as a touchstone of the art of the social poet, at the end. The
Italian sonnets are treated in the middle. The two entertainment
texts written for the aristocracy, 'Arcades' and the Ludlow masque,
feature in Chapter 3, with some attention paid to the way they nego
tiate with present occasions and to the way Milton's vocational
Introduction xi
statements are made in them. 'Lycidas' is also considered in the
light of its occasion and for its statements about vocation in the con
text of ecclesiastical reform and this chapter ends by characterising
the year of its composition, 1637, as one of crisis for reforming
spirits, because of the dealings of church and court. It is claimed that
this sense of crisis helped to trigger Milton's first major publications
at that time. The fourth chapter, centring on the Italian journey and
the period immediately afterwards, first treats Milton's poems to
Italian humanists, then his ecclesiastical pamphlets. Concerning the
period from about 1642 to 1649, the fifth chapter covers the divorce
tracts, Of Education, Areopagitica and The Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates and is the first of the three chapters making definitive
use of English sonnets, as well as discussing the psalm paraphrases
of 1648 and historical and geographical works being composed at
that time. The next two linked chapters cover the 1650s, and a good
number of sonnets are given prominence in them. The first of these
chapters features Eikonoklastes and the Defences, whilst the second
features in the context of growing disillusion with the Cromwellian
regime, the psalm paraphrases of 1653, the De Doctrina Christiana,
and the political and ecclesiastical tracts of 1659~0. Paradise Lost is
given a chapter to itself, not however in the form of a general critical
account, but rather in that of an essay speculating about its method
of speaking to the times in which it was published. An underlying,
difficult question here is one concerning possible conditions of
censorship in an adverse situation for the writer. Finally, the ninth
and last chapter, as might be expected, comes to rest with Paradise
Regained and Samson Agonistes and a review of late publications, but
less expectedly perhaps takes some terms of definition from Of True
Religion.
As will quickly be apparent, the book has various recurrent
themes, which give particular colouring to the discussion of
works. Not surprisingly, education is a constant concern, both
because of the rich documentation on Milton's own distinctive
education and also because many major works in verse and prose
were designed to be instructive and show great resourcefulness
in their instructive modes. Milton himself was involved in
various ways in writing about education, which he saw as a key
factor in national renewal. The theme of education gives
definition to many chapters, especially perhaps to the schemes
for regional colleges in Milton's tracts on the eve of the
Restoration.