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Happy Birthday, Milton
John Milton is 400 years old this year, eternally speaking, and Stanley Fish writes about why Milton is such a superior poet. It is important to note, while reading Fish’s encomium, that Milton was a Puritan.
Rather than being employed for its own sake, [Milton's] poetry is always in the service of ideas and moral commitments, and it is always demanding that its readers measure themselves against the judgments it repeatedly makes – judgments about the nature of virtue, about the proper mode of civil and domestic behavior, about the true shape of heroism, about the self-parodying bluster of military action, about the criteria of aesthetic excellence, about the uses of leisure, about one’s duties to man and God, about the scope and limitations of reason, about the primacy of faith, about everything.
Of course, the quality of his work transcended merely Puritan concerns, which is what makes it so lasting, and some to which all Christian writers should aspire. You can read some of his poems here, and I’ll post one in just a few minutes.
back to top42 Comments to “Happy Birthday, Milton”
I dispute that Milton was simply a “Puritan.” Many scholars note he was in all likelihood an Arian heretic.
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in the spirit of JM:
APOEMOGETICS.blogspot.com
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Scholars schmalars!! Check out what teenage tinkerbell said about the Friday poem. That is what makes good poetry not endless discussions of was Milton a Puritan or an Arian.
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Interesting that our first two posts on this thread have to do with transgressive sexual politics. My understanding is that much of the modern scholarly attempt to view Milton as an Arian has to do with such politics.
I slogged through Paradise Lost in Middle English during a college course and after nearly flunking it made a vow to never touch the stuff again. At the time I found Satan to be the sort of self-absorbed and narcissistic character that we find often in modern life.
Actually, Shakespeare is a far more interesting writer than Milton.
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While his intentions may not be so very honorable, Jon Rowe’s facts are correct, and he doesn’t need “scholars” to bolster them. All you have to do is read “De Doctrina Christiana,” Milton’s posthumously published theology treatise, to find proof of his heterodoxy.
Futhermore, Milton’s Puritan credentials are suspect, being more political than ecclesiastical. He was a (lower-case r) republican who, for better or worse, despised absolute authority in both the church and the state–not least because he found it necessary to defend his own divorce. People are always citing him for his advocacy of free speech, too, but they often omit the fact that his tolerance for freedom of expression stopped short at ideas he disliked, i.e., Roman Catholic dogma. It’s all there in both Aereopagitica and Stanley Fish’s “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech.”
Now, I adore Milton almost to the point of idolatrous worship, but let’s not lie to each other about who he was or wasn’t. And if you like Milton, you should check out Geoffrey Hill, whose most recent collection steals its title from one of Milton’s essays: “A Treatise of Civil Power.” His work has the same qualities that Fish identifies in Milton.
Peter Leavitt,
Arianism has nothing to do with transgressive sexual politics, and Paradise Lost (1674) isn’t written in Middle Enlish. Chaucer (14th century), however, is. But you may be right in preferring Shakespeare–his range is indeed much wider.
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David L, I was involved in college with a bzarre English prof. who had translated Paradise Lost into Middle English and taught a course on both Chaucer and Milton.
Arianism has a lot to do with transgressive sexual politics. If the militants promoting the sexual revolution can prove Christ not to have been the resurrected Son of God, then just about anything goes.
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Or, on this incredibly hot Friday afternoon, we could talk about the Lynchburg, VA coffee shop called the Drowsy Poet which is known for their Milton Milkshakes… mmmmmmmm. Anyone?
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The best grade I ever got for a paper was the one I wrote on Lycidas.
Milton was also the first poet I read who actually got my 20-something sense of passing time (How soon hath time…).
And as for ,i>Paradise Lost — oh, there is something glorious about reading it aloud. Milton writes for the ear, especially after going blind. So in reading him aloud, there come all these really great rhythms, all in iambic, just rolling in like so many waves at the shore.
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I suggest we celebrate Milton’s birthday by forgetting for a moment the wrangling over his orthodoxy and its relation to the twisted sexual revolution.
Milton’s poetry astounds the reader–the beauty and wonder of his Heaven, the horrors of his Hell, and the deep intricacies of theology and politics.
To me, he’s a far better writer than Shakespeare. (Sorry … reading Shakespeare is boring for me, although I like to watch it.)
We had to memorize the first few lines of Paradise Lost in college, and I actually love saying them: Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree …
Isn’t that beautiful?
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The Puritans were a people of the Book and as their amazing literary legacy attests, many books! Their love for the Bible sparked an unique passion for literacy.
Early Massachusetts may well have been one of the most highly educated communities the world had ever known. Harvard and Yale soon sprang into action in New England to maintain “a learned ministry” and a “literate laity.” America’s intellectual legacy of literacy owes more to the Puritans, by far, than to any other heritage.
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The Puritans were creative and innovative!
English hymnody blessed the world in a big way and Puritan influence nurtured and revived it.
The magnificent and brilliant scholar/composer Isaac Watts (1674-1748) did more to enrich Christian worship than perhaps anyone since.
The Puritan era launched a rich body of hymnody, poetry and devotional literature.
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I suspect Jon Rowe is not being serious at #1 (and I would respect him more in this case if he was kidding).
The Puritans were highly diverse and dynamic!
Dr. Harry S. Stout, the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity at Yale University, said; “To understand the Puritans, you have to adopt their attitude that life is a great adventure.”
Crossing the Atlantic (like the Red Sea) to settle a brave new Promised Land was a good example of that adventurous spirit.
When John Bunyan (1628-1688) wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress,” he was appealing to a spirit of adventure.
The Puritans were on a mission. They earnestly believed that their lives mattered. Their flaws are famous but they were also a people of great reverence, humor and compassion. Marital sex was highly honored and Puritan families were routinely large and they had a strong work ethic (fits with their strong sense of vocation, in America, to erect a “city on a hill.”).
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Nonconformity marked the Puritans from the start. Early struggles amid Catholic or Anglican pressure to conform taught many English Puritans to think in nonconformist ways. How American! But nonconformity was costly. Thus, many Puritans fled to America in search of religious liberty. This quest for freedom was subjected to many refining fires but it eventually emerged in its vital American form out of Puritan soil.
In 1647, when the early Rhode Island residents laid plans for a federal commonwealth, the preamble of their governing document said, “The form of government established in Providence Plantations is DEMOCRATICAL, that is to say, a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all or the greater part of the free inhabitants.”
That same document emphasized that this freedom would not come at the expense of holiness.
Perhaps the greatest Puritan legacy is the understanding of democratic freedom in a context of lawful responsibility and spiritual duty.
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The myth of the joyless Puritan was invented by a revisionist journalist with a chip on his shoulder durng Prohibition. And the Puritans were by no means teetotalers (something that this unknowing journalist named H. L Menken did not even know).
The Puritans endured incredible hardship, beyond our imagination today, without calling their God on the carpet. Most Puritans knew that there are no blessings without struggles, no rights without responsibilities, no trip to paradise without a dry spell in the wilderness, no glory without sacrifice, no succor without service, no position without preparation, and no forgiveness without repentance. And for Jesus, they knew there was no throne without a cross.
If you value freedom, adventure, education, literacy, work, democracy, creativity, equality, and the rule of law, you owe a debt of gratitude to the Puritans (by and large, of course). They were not the sole custodians of these treasures nor did they invent them, but they bore more than their fair share of the load in carrying them to their posterity.
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Joel Mark, you have given an impressive summary of the Puritans which seems quite accurate from what I know.
I believe that John Bunyan was a Baptist rather than a Puritan, although he is part of the broader movement of nonconformity that included the Puritans.
One negative remark I will make is that the Puritans were none too tolerant of Baptists and Quakers. Interesting that they asserted their right to dissent but denied that right to others.
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Garry Wills in one of his more recent books begins with a description of the Puritans hanging a Quaker woman for preaching her heresy in Massachusetts.
Actually, she was “hanged” twice. The first time was a mock hanging next to two Quaker men who were actually hanged. The Puritans were a little abashed at hanging a woman, so they thought if she had to watch two of her brethren hanged next to her but was then released, she would “mend” her ways.
When she didn’t “mend,” the Puritans steeled themselves to the task and at a later date, did the deed. They hanged her. For preaching.
I am sure the Puritans had many excellent qualities, but I think some her, such as Joel, who sing their praises, are reluctant to look at the Puritans full frontal–what–intolerance?
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Well, I don’t want to get into this whole puritan discussion, so I won’t.
But Puritan or heretic or whatever, Milton sure had a way with words. I loved Paradise Lost. My favorite piece of poetry ever is a section of it…
Hail, holy light,
Offspring of heaven first born,
Or of the eternal, coeternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed?
I’ve quoted it so often I don’t know where the line breaks are anymore. ^_^
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#15, Kyle, I do not question your point. But remember that being tolerant was not regarded then by a lot of various groups as it is now. It was a different world then and the standards they revered just are’t the same. I admire their virtues and do not deny their flaws, but I try not to measure their flaws so much by our modern standards of thinking.
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#16 – Hangings were very rare among the Puritans, but they happened. It was the 1600s. Among other groups in the old world (Europe) at the time, it was more common.
Even among the faithful, superstitions were common in the countryside, often built on fear in fragile, tough and uncertain times. But the harsh exeptions make for edgier stories than the far more plentiful accurate accounts of the extraordinary endurance and deceny of the Puritans. Their legacy was foundation to some of the best things about us as Americans.
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I am glad hangings were very rare among the Puritans. Joel, I would respect your posts more if you were more willing to confront these episodes without making so much effort to spin them.
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Random, the last thing on my mind when I post is any notion of gaining your “respect.” Neither do I seek your disrespect (that comes easily enough though). Truth and objectivity is what I seek. If that offends you, Random, that’s tough.
It has long been fashionable to be uncharitable the memory of Puritans. This did not come from honest historians but from jounalists with a political agenda during Prohibition days and during the scopes trial. Whatever you think of that agenda, fine, but the memory of the Puritans was intentinally twisted and falsely scroned to serve a certain political agenda of the early 20th century. Perhaps you are easily deceived, Random.
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Besdies, I am willing to confront those “episodes” head on without spin. Setting things in their real historical context or telling a fuller story is not spin. See the book review I published on one of the Salem Witch judges. Check it out at:
http://www.campuscrosswalk.org/2008-spring-16.html
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Nice review, JM!
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At the 3 minute mark, U Chi Law Prof. Geof Stone discusses the Puritans in a lecture that closely parallels my views on religion & the Founding. He even mentions “theistic rationalism” when discussing Washington’s faith.
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2008/07/geof-stone-the.html
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Joel,
I read the review you linked. It argues your point better, and you present yourself in a better light than your WOW posts generally do.
I still wonder, as I have asked others, few of whom deign to answer: why do you post on World on the Web? What is the purpose of your posts here?
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Jon Rowe is an avowed neo-pagan whose purpose on this blog is to argue for the position that America was founded mainly by Deists and others who were not serious Christians. This position, if accepted provides a foundation for a radical sort of pagan freedom that allows for transgressive sexuality.
It is true that during the 18 Century Deism became a fashionable theory among some of the elite including especially Franklin and Jefferson, though over time this theory subsided in America. Avery Dulles in an article, The Deist Minimum, wrote:
In the closing decades of the eighteenth century, deism in the United States, as elsewhere, seemed to be sweeping everything before it. But early in the nineteenth century, the deist tide began to recede. The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a significant revival of Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic. The preachers of the second Great Awakening were especially successful in rural America, where they aroused a highly emotional biblically based religion. While Unitarianism survived and even experienced some growth in New England, it lost its specifically deist features: the sharp dichotomy between faith and reason, the deductivist natural theology, the separation between God and the world, and the idea of Jesus as teacher of the natural law. Deism therefore may be said to have perished, not only in the United States but also in England, France, and Germany.
Jody Bottum in a recent article, The Death of Protestant America: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline wrote:
In truth, all the talk, from the eighteenth century on, of the United States as a religious nation was really just a make-nice way of saying it was a Christian nation—and even to call it a Christian nation was usually just a soft and ecumenical attempt to gloss over the obvious fact that the United States was, at its root, a Protestant nation. Catholics and Jews were tolerated, off and on, but “the destiny of America,” as Alexis de Tocqueville observed in 1835, was “embodied in the first Puritan who landed on those shores, just as the whole human race was represented by the first man.”
Even America’s much vaunted religious liberty was essentially a Protestant idea. However deistical and enlightened some of the Founding Fathers may have been, Deism and the Enlightenment provided little of the religious liberty they put in the Bill of Rights. The real cause was the rivalry of the Protestant churches: No denomination achieved victory as the nation’s legally established church, mostly because the Baptists fought it where they feared it would be the Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians fought it where they feared it would be the Congregationalists. The oddity of American religion produced the oddity of American religious freedom.
While America is indeed a nation of religious freedom and tolerance of pluralistic views, it is a mistake to underestimate the considerable influence in our history of the Christian religion.
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Peter,
You’ve got to get sex off your mind. It’s corrupting it.
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And in case anyone can’t tell, Peter’s attempt to impugn my motives as opposed to addressing what I actually say is a classic example of the poisoning the well or the “genetic fallacy.” Thank you Peter for so well illustrating that for us. Any elementary philosophy professors reading this might want to think about using Peter’s example as a classroom illustration.
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Jon, one notes that you didn’t counter Dulles or Bottum. As to the sexual issue, one judges from occasional reading of your blog and posts here, you’re the one that seems obsessed with sexuality.
It is obvious to anyone on this blog what your motives are here as a neo pagan attempting to gull those whom you tend to regard as naive Christian evangelical fanatics.
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It is obvious to anyone on this blog what your motives are here as a neo pagan attempting to gull those whom you tend to regard as naive Christian evangelical fanatics.
As Reagan used to say, “there you go again.” Again with the genetic fallacy.
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Re the Dulles article, you keep on citing it and I keep on telling you that I largely agree with its content. Indeed, you misrepresent my position by saying I argue for a “Deist” Founding, when I’ve painstakingly tried to point out that I argue for a nuanced, middle ground position that America’s key Founders were neither “strict Deists” nor “orthodox Christian” but somewhere in between. And indeed Dulles’ article recognizes that many of America’s most notable Founders were “deistic” but not quite “pure Deists.”
Re the Bottum article, I agree that America is largely “Protestant Christian” but in a cultural sense, not in a governmental sense. America’s government is secular, that is it treats all individuals as equals with regard to religion. That’s what it means to have secular government.
Key to the “Christian Nation” myth as promoted by Barton, Federer and Kennedy is that 1) America’s government is a “Christian” institution (in the orthodox sense); 2) such “biblical Christianity” was the prime source of ideas for America’s Founding documents [the Constitution, Declaration, and Federalists papers]; and 3) almost almost all of America’s Founders were “Christian” in the orthodox biblical sense.
I have demolished all three of those claims on these threads.
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We have long been a “Christian nation.” That’s no ‘myth.’ I think we still are but not as strong as we once were in this respectable regard. We were founded over time as a Christian nation with a secular gov’t, for the most part. Our founding gov’t was meant to be quite friendly to faith, but not formative of it or instrumental to it.
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The key point, as Bottum points out, is that our religious freedom came more from the Baptists opposing the Episcopalians in Virginia and the Episcopalians opposing the Congregationalists in New England than from the Enlightenment thinkers. The cultural influence of Christianity has always had an enormous influence in America including the governmen and the public square, much to the dismay of the hard edged secularists.
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Jon, I don’t think yours is a “middle ground position.” It seems to me to be an axtremely dogmatic and judgmentalist position at times. For some reason, you are driven to discredit the Founders in the eyes of Christians. You often lump them into large groups of Founders to accuse them of “heresy” as if you are qualified to make those judgments two centuries later. It gets rather ridiculous and unscholarly at times. At other times, you bring in some rather rare and isolated quotes and anecdots and that’s fine, but you draw too many dogmatic conclusions from too little evidence. Since the Founders were diverse, you probably come close to being right sometimes.
Well said peter, at #33.
But your positions on this matter do not seem middle ground to me. When it comes to evaluating the faith-stances of the Founders, it is silly to claim a position in the middle or on either side of the spectrum. Better to just say that they were diverse and as a group of great men, the correct answer is “all of the above.” But I am far less willing to trash their Christianity (especially of those who claimed it and practiced it) than you are.
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A kernel of truth — religious/political liberty wasn’t necessarily a “biblical” concept (spiritual liberty, rather, is) but a result of sectarian squabbles that took place in the Christian West. A way to resolve a problem. My co-blogger Jason Kuznicki uses the analogy of the body developing an immunity to a virus by producing “antibodies.” Religious/political liberty is an antibody to problems that were inherent in the Christian West.
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Jon, Tocqueville and Jonathan Edwards credited Christianity more than the Greeks/Romans, and Enlightenment for laying the foundation of democracy in America.Your suggestion that there was some sort of virus inherent in Christianity that was cured by an immunity among some of its branches is an intellectual stretch.
The truth is that there was/is a confluence of Christian/Greek/Roman influences on the development of freedom and democracy, none of which could be regarded as having some sort a virus that needed an antibody.
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Peter I simply disagree and think that the lack of political liberty and rampant persecution of dissident sects was indeed the virus of Christendom that gave rise to the antibody of religious and political liberty.
Joel perhaps I seem not so centrist and nuanced because you have to look to your left to get to my position. To the strict secular leftists they have to look to their right to see where I am coming from. But I do admit that, in having to pick my battles, I most often attack the “Christian Nation” idea, not the “strict separationist” point of view, giving the illusion of being more of a secularist than I really am.
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Jon Rowe, I too have a hard time accepting your theses as a middle-ground approach. You are a man on a mission to prove that America was not founded upon Christian principles and to discredit those who say that she was. Your view of the Founding Fathers doesn’t strike me as any more nuanced than the view(s) that you oppose.
Joel Mark’s and Peter Leavitt’s approach seems more moderate to me. As we look back to the Founding Fathers we can acknowledge that there were varied beliefs among them and that America’s founding principles come from varied sources. It’s neither as simple as David Barton implies or as simple as you, Jon Rowe, imply.
The ideas of religious and political liberty did not spring up in the eighteenth century. The entire history of the world contains a continuous struggle between liberty and control. It’s true that liberty scored an enormous victory in 1776 and again in 1789, but thousands of years of history underly it–not just Christianity and not just the Enlightenment.
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Good comment Kyle. I might reproduce it on my blogs. I have a new blog out called “American Creation” where we are striving mightily to obtain balance. My friend Tom Van Dyke — a neo-Thomist who has written for the American Spectator — I insisted be added as a coblogger because his thoughts help to put mine in perspective, even if ultimately we agree that America was not founded as an “orthodox Christian” nation. See his post here.
What I have called “theistic rationalism” he calls “Judeo-Christianity.” Not orthodox Trinitarian Christianity, but some broader creed within the “Judeo-Christian” tradition.
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Religious/political liberty took root in very Christian soil here in America. The friendliness toward freedom that we saw in such a Christian culture as ours is part of what makes America such a special place.
I agree with Peter Leavitt at #36.
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#38, Kyle A, very well summed up, sir.
The persecution of dissident sects is a staple of human history that took centuries to emerge away from. Examples of this can, of course, be found in America, but far far less so than in the old world. America’s founding represented a huge leap forward toward religious liberty and it is no coincideence that this leap took place among Christians.
And speaking of the “old World,” in recent history (including modern times), we have see that atheist/secularist persecutions can be the worst and bloddiest of all such persectuions (of dissidents) in human history. The more secular or atheist the Old World became (from France, to Russia to Germany), the worse the persecutions got. Now Europe’s secular status is getting weak under the advance of Islam, a religion that has its own legacy of persecuting dissidents more agressively than most.
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I really have to laugh at some of the Posting here. The thought that the Puritans were deists and not fundamental Biblicists is absolutely hilarious. Puritans were in constant self examination of their walk with God to ensure they were part of the faith. One need only read their prayers in the Valley and the Vision
Link: http://www.oldlandmarks.com/puritan.htm
In short the Puritans applied:
2Co 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test?
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