Author | John Milton |
---|---|
Original title | Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, To the Parlament of England. |
Language | Early Modern English |
Genre | Speech, prose polemic |
Publication date | 1644 |
Publication place | Kingdom of England |
Pages | 30 pages |
323.445 | |
LC Class | Z657 .M66 |
Text | Areopagitica at Wikisource |
Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England is a 1644 prose polemic by the English poet, scholar, and polemical author John Milton opposing licensing. [1] Areopagitica is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression. Many of its expressed principles have formed the basis for modern justifications of that right.
Areopagitica was published on 23 November 1644 at the height of the English Civil War. It takes its title in part from Areopagitikós (Greek : Ἀρεοπαγιτικός), a speech written by Athenian orator Isocrates in the 4th century BC. (The Areopagus is a hill in Athens, the site of real and legendary tribunals, and was the name of a council whose power Isocrates hoped to restore.) Some argue that it is more importantly also a reference to the defence that St Paul made before the Areopagus in Athens against charges of promulgating foreign gods and strange teachings, as recorded in Acts 17:18–34. [2]
Like Isocrates, Milton (who was not a member of parliament) did not mean his work to be an oral speech to that assembly. Instead, it was distributed via pamphlet, thus defying the same publication censorship which he argued against. As a radical, Milton had supported the Presbyterians in Parliament, and would later work as a civil servant for the new republic, [3] but in this work he argued forcefully against Parliament's 1643 Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing, also known as the Licensing Order of 1643, in which Parliament required authors to have a licence approved by the government before their work could be published.
According to the British Library, "State control of printing was introduced by Henry VIII and continued into the 17th century. In April 1638, political agitator John Lilburne was arrested for importing subversive books. He was fined £500 and flogged for the two miles between the Fleet Prison and the pillory. Milton wrote his pamphlet as a protest against Lilburne's treatment." [4] This issue was personal for Milton, as he had suffered censorship himself in his efforts to publish several tracts defending divorce (a radical stance which met with no favour from the censors). In particular, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), which he published anonymously and unlicensed, was condemned by the Puritan clergy as being heretical and intending to foster sexual libertinism, and it was cited in petitions to parliament as evidence of the need to reinstall a system of prepublication licensing. [5] Areopagitica is full of Biblical and classical references which Milton uses to strengthen his argument. This is particularly fitting because it was being addressed to the Calvinist Presbyterians who composed Parliament at that time. [6]
According to George H. Sabine, the Areopagitica presumed and was written for an engaged public:
Its basic principle was the right and also the duty of every intelligent man as a rational being, to know the grounds and take responsibility for his beliefs and actions. Its corollary was a society and a state in which decisions are reached by open discussion, in which the sources of information are not contaminated by authority in the interest of party, and in which political unity is secured not by force but by a consensus that respects variety of opinion. [7]
Before presenting his argument, Milton defends the very idea of writing a treatise such as Areopagitica. He compliments England for having overcome the tyranny of Charles I and the prelates, but his purpose is to voice his grievances. Milton defends this purpose, holding that to bring forth complaints before the Parliament is a matter of civil liberty and loyalty, because constructive criticism is better than false flattery. [8] He concludes his introduction by encouraging Parliament to obey "the voice of reason" and to be "willing to repeal any Act" for the sake of truth and upright judgment. [8]
Milton begins with historical evidence noting that Ancient Greece and Rome did not adhere to the practice of licensing. In some cases, blasphemous or libellous writings were burnt and their authors punished, but it was after production that these texts were rejected rather than prior to it. Milton argues that a work should be "examined, refuted, and condemned" rather than prohibited before examination. Milton points out that licensing was first instituted by the Catholics with the Inquisition. This fact appealed to Parliament's religious beliefs since it was dominated by Protestants, and there were conflicts between the Protestants and Catholics in England. Milton provides historical examples of the aftermath following the Inquisition, including how there were popes in Rome beginning in the 14th century who became tyrannical licensers. For example, Pope Martin V became the first to prohibit the reading of heretical books, and then in the 16th century the Council of Trent and Spanish Inquisition prohibited texts that were not even necessarily heretical, but only unfavourable to the friars.
Milton precedes his argument by discussing the purpose of reading. He mentions that Moses, David, and Paul were all learned, which reminds his Protestant audience that being learned involves reading "books of all sorts". He argues that this includes even the "bad" or heretical books, because we can learn from their wrongs and discover what is true by considering what is not true. Milton's point is that God endowed every person with the reason, free will, and conscience to judge ideas for themselves, so the ideas in a text should be rejected by the reader's own choice, not by a licensing authority. Also, the mind is not corrupted simply by encountering falsehood. Milton points out that encountering falsehood can actually lead to virtuous action, such as how St. Paul's converts had privately and voluntarily burned Ephesian books considered to be "magick".
Milton then argues that Parliament's licensing order will fail in its purpose to suppress scandalous, seditious, and libellous books: "this order of licencing conduces nothing to the end for which it was fram'd". The order was meant to rectify manners by preventing the spread of an "infection" caused by bad books. Milton objects, arguing that the licensing order is too sweeping, because even the Bible itself had been historically limited to readers for containing offensive descriptions of blasphemy and wicked men. Milton also points out that Parliament will not protect the ignorant from bad books by this order, because the books would more likely have been read by the learned anyhow. Furthermore, whatever bad ideas were written can still be taught through word of mouth or otherwise, so "infection" or corruption is not prevented. Milton's point is that licensing books cannot possibly prevent societal corruption (it is "far insufficient to the end which it intends"), so there is no viable stopping point: "If we think to regulat Printing, thereby to rectifie manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man". Finally, Milton also points out that, if there are even licensers fit for making these judgments, then the possibility of error in licensing books is still great, and the amount of time that the job would take is impractical.
Milton argues that licensing is "a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of Learning". This is because many authors will produce a written work with genuinely good intentions only to have it censored by what amounts to a subjective, arbitrary judgment of the licenser.
Milton also thinks that England needs to be open to truth and understanding, which should not be monopolised by the government's standards. Faith and knowledge need exercise, but this order will lead to conformity and laziness. Licensing will hinder discovery of truth by the government's prejudice and custom, because there will always be more truth to be found that we do not yet know of. Milton thinks that licensing could potentially hinder God's plans, since it gives the licenser the power to silence others.
Milton recognises individual rights, but he is not completely libertarian in Areopagitica as he argues that the status quo ante worked best. According to the previous English law, all books had to have at least a printer's name (and preferably an author's name) inscribed in them. Under that system, Milton argues, if any blasphemous or libellous material is published, those books can still be destroyed after the fact. "Those which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectual remedy, that mans prevention can use." Milton seeks a means by which to ensure that authors and publishers remain culpable for any "mischievous" or "libellous" work that they produce. Regardless, Milton certainly is not without remorse for the libellous author, nor does he promote unrestricted free speech. In addition, he admits that his tolerance is limited:
I mean not tolerated Popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpats all religions and civill supremacies, so it self should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled.
According to Nicholas McDowell, the second part of the forecited statement is usually left out by those quoting the first part to show that Milton was, at heart, a religious bigot, and that his ideas about free speech and intellectual liberty have little to teach us about liberalism today. (Whether the second half of the statement is actually an effective mitigation to the bigotry is a question eminently suited for discussion.) [5]
Areopagitica did not persuade the Presbyterians in Parliament to invalidate the prepublication censorship component of the Licensing Order of 1643; freedom of the press in this sense was not achieved until 1695, when the Parliament chose not to renew the order. [9] However, as Milton's treatise has been overwhelmingly praised, but it was unsuccessful because the objective did not appeal to the target audience. Milton and the Presbyterians had together abolished the Star Chamber under Charles I, but now that they were not being oppressed and they held the power, the Presbyterians in Parliament no longer held to their defence of freedom of the press. Through the Licensing Order of 1643, they were set on silencing the more radical Protestants, the Independents as well as works supporting the King which had begun to appear in London. Milton's treatise is his response to that licensing order, which clearly came at a time when he and the Parliament were already at odds. [10]
In addition, by the time Milton wrote Areopagitica he had already unsuccessfully challenged Parliament in other areas of privilege and right. Milton's divorce tracts proved too radical for his immediate day, as did this work. Milton's ideas were ahead of his time in the sense that he anticipated the arguments of later advocates of freedom of the press by relating the concept of free will and choice to individual expression and right. Milton's treatise "laid the foundations for thought that would come after and express itself in such authors as John Locke and John Stuart Mill". [11]
However, although Milton's ideas were initially resisted by the Puritans, they were incorporated into the official charter of the Puritan church within a few years. The Westminster Confession of Faith, written between 1643 and 1650, allows for divorce on two grounds: infidelity and abandonment. [12] The Westminster Confession of Faith states: "Adultery or fornication, committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract. In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce, and after the divorce to marry another, as if the offending party were dead." [13]
A quotation from Areopagitica is prominently displayed over the entrance to the renovated Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library: "A good Booke is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life". [14]
The Supreme Court of the United States has referred to Areopagitica, in interpreting the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, to explain the Amendment's protections. The Court has cited Areopagitica by name in four cases. Most notably, the Court cited Areopagitica in the landmark case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan to explain the inherent value of false statements. [15] The Court cited Milton to explain the dangers of prior restraint in Times Film Corporation v. City of Chicago . [16] Later, Justice Douglas concurred in Eisenstadt v. Baird , citing the pamphlet to support striking down restrictions on lecturing about birth control. [17] Finally, Justice Black cited Areopagitica when he dissented from the Court's upholding of restrictions on the Communist Party of the United States against a free speech and free association challenge in Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board . [18] In each instance, Milton is cited by the Court's members to support a broad and expansive protection of free speech and association.
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse and including twelve books, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and God's expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost elevated Milton's reputation as one of history's greatest poets. He also served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell.
Edmund Calamy was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.
John Selden was an English jurist, a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned men reputed in this land".
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1643.
The history of copyright starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute. Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books. Over time other uses such as translations and derivative works were made subject to copyright and copyright now covers a wide range of works, including maps, performances, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures and computer programs.
The marketplace of ideas is a rationale for freedom of expression based on an analogy to the economic concept of a free market. The marketplace of ideas holds that the truth will emerge from the competition of ideas in free, transparent public discourse and concludes that ideas and ideologies will be culled according to their superiority or inferiority and widespread acceptance among the population. The concept is often applied to discussions of patent law as well as freedom of the press and the responsibilities of the media in a liberal democracy.
The Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing, also known as the Licensing Order of 1643, instituted pre-publication censorship upon Parliamentary England. Milton's Areopagitica was written specifically against this Act.
Charles Blount was an English deist and philosopher who published several anonymous essays critical of the existing English order.
Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke was an English politician, military officer and peer. A leading opponent of Charles I of England, when the First English Civil War began in August 1642, he was appointed as the commander of Parliamentarian forces in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. He was killed by a Royalist sniper at the Siege of Lichfield on 2 March 1643.
Press laws are the laws concerning the licensing of books and the liberty of expression in all products of the printing-press, especially newspapers. The liberty of the press has always been regarded by political writers as of supreme importance. Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties, says Milton in the Areopagitica.
The Parable of the Weeds or Tares is a parable of Jesus which appears in Matthew 13:24–43. The parable relates how servants eager to pull up weeds were warned that in so doing they would root out the wheat as well and were told to let both grow together until the harvest. Later in Matthew, the weeds are identified with "the children of the evil one", the wheat with "the children of the Kingdom", and the harvest with "the end of the age". A shorter, compressed version of the parable is found without any interpretation in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.
The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 was an Act of the Parliament of England with the long title An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses. Having expired in 1695, it was officially repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863, which repealed a large set of superseded acts.
Milton's divorce tracts refer to the four interlinked polemical pamphlets—The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, The Judgment of Martin Bucer, Tetrachordon, and Colasterion—written by John Milton from 1643 to 1645. They argue for the legitimacy of divorce on grounds of spousal incompatibility. Arguing for divorce at all, let alone a version of no-fault divorce, was extremely controversial and religious figures sought to ban his tracts. Although the tracts were met with nothing but hostility and he later rued publishing them in English at all, they are important for analysing the relationship between Adam and Eve in his epic Paradise Lost. Spanning three years characterised by turbulent changes in the English printing business, they also provide an important context for the publication of Areopagitica, Milton's most famous work of prose.
The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: Restor'd to the Good of Both Sexes, From the Bondage of Canon Law was published by John Milton on 1 August 1643. An expanded second edition was published on 2 February 1644. The editions were published anonymously, and his name was not associated with the text until they were denounced before Parliament in August 1644. Milton's basic scriptural argument is that Jesus did not abrogate the Mosaic permission for divorce found in Deuteronomy 24:1 because in Matthew 19 he was just addressing a specific audience of Pharisees.
Henry Robinson was an English merchant and writer. He is best known for a work on religious toleration, Liberty of Conscience from 1644.
The religious views of John Milton influenced many of his works focusing on the nature of religion and of the divine. He differed in important ways from the Calvinism with which he is associated, particularly concerning the doctrines of grace and predestination. The unusual nature of his own Protestant Christianity has been characterized as both Puritan and Independent.
Politics were an important part of John Milton's life. Milton enjoyed little wide-scale early success, either in prose or poetry, until the production of his later, controversial political works starting with The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes.
This is an index of lists of banned books, which contain books that have been banned or censored by religious authority or government.
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations. Many countries have constitutional law that protects free speech. Terms like free speech, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression are used interchangeably in political discourse. However, in a legal sense, the freedom of expression includes any activity of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.
Obadiah Sedgwick (1600?–1658) was an English clergyman of presbyterian views, and a member of the Westminster Assembly.