milton and the english revolution by christopher hill

7/23/2019 Milton and the English Revolution by Christopher Hill

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Milton and the English

Revolution

Christopher Hill

The only reason for my being here this evening, suspeet, is that

onee wrote a book ealled Mitton and

th

English Revolution shall

assume that none ofyou have read it. However, one item in it may

be

of

relevanee to our diseussions. eited Chekhov s letters in

whieh we see that great (and relatively non-politieal)

artist

haggling

with the

eensor about

what he

was permitted to say,

sometimes deeiding to omit a passage in order to get the rest

published, at other times deeiding

that

it was

not worth

it: a

partieular story must be saerifieed rather than emaseulated.

Milton s relationship to the eensor was

rather

similar,

only

Milton

was a mueh

more

politieally involved

eharaeter than

Chekhov,

and after 1660 he was marked down as a notorious enemy of the

regime. A seeond

item

of

possible relevanee:

Mauriee

Baring s

report during the Russo-Japanese War

of

1905-6 that one ofthe

most

popular

books

with

the peasant soldiers

in the

tsar s army was

a Russian translation

of

Paradise Lost

am

not quite sure

what

to

eonclude from this unexpeeted faet, but it helps to link the English

and

Russian Revolutions.

Milton

is England s greatest

poet who

was also a

revolutionary

and

her greatest revolutionary who was also a poet.

want

to plaee

him in

the

eontext

ofthe

17th-eentury

English Revolution.

But

first

Iet me

clear

away some possible miseoneeptions. Milton was

t -

as his popular image sometimes suggests-a dour Puritan, iron

grey in clothes and ideas; 17th-eentury Puritans in general were

not like that; they were not killjoys.

When

we think of main-line

Puritans,

those who

made

the English Revolution, we should think

not ofZeal-of-the-Land

Busy

but ofOliver

Cromwell,

with

his Iove

of

musie

and

wine,

of

Major-General Harrison strutting about in

his searlet cloak,

of

Luey Apsley,

who

teils us

that when the

very

Puritan Thomas

Hutehinsan eame

to

courther

he found withall

that

though she was modest yet was she aeeostable .

What

exaetly

aeeostable implies is not clear;

but Mrs Hutehinsan

was

no prude:

she

thought that

Edward the Confessor had been sainted for his

3

G. A. Hosking et al. (eds.), Perspectives on Literature and Society in Eastern and Western Europe

School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London 1989


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24

Milton

and the

nglish Revolution

ungodly chastity .

1

We should recail too the Russian ambassador

who came

to London in 1645, after the city

had

been under

Puritan

domination

for four years.

Writing

in 1646 to the

Tsar

to

describe

what he

found

particularly

impressive

about

the city

he

picked

out

the beautiful stained glass in church-windows and the

merry

pealing ofthe church beils.

Ifhe had

only been able to

read

some 20th-century textbooks he would

have

known that by 1646

Puritans had smashed ail the church windows

and

melted down

the beils to

make cannon.

The Russian

who

described what

he

thought he saw and heard was clearly the victim

of

revolutionary

propaganda.

Milton

wore his

hair

long, like most gentlemanly

Roundheads .

The man

who

insisted on short haircuts for Oxford undergraduates

was Archbishop Laud. Milton, like ail his contemporaries, expres

sed his political ideas in religious idiom. There

are

plenty of

revolutionary ideas in

the

Bible, which were used in furtherance of

secular political aims. Nor was

Milton

the

woman-hater whom

Robert Graves depicted. One line in Paradise Lost s often quoted

against him:

Milton

wrote ofAdam and Eve, He for God only, she

for

God in him .

That

sexist Statement was

of

course a totaily

conventional 17th-century view.

Hardly a clergyman in the land

would

have queried

it. But

did Milton

query it? The notorious line

s part

of

a description of Adam and Eve as seen y

Satan

Milton

sometimes attributed his

own

views to

Satan,

as we shail see: but in

this instance he may weil have been deliberately ambiguous.

3

Milton

was

denounced

by his contemporaries as a libertine.

Certainly he

was

no

austere

Puritan . When

his

undergraduate

contemporaries wanted a

bawdy

speech for a riotous

party, they

turned to

Milton to make

i t and he obliged. Tbat

migbt bave

happened to any

ofus

in

our

unregenerate youth,

but

not all

ofus

would keep tbe speecb for nearly 50 years, as Milton did, and

tben

publisb it.

Milton

feit it necessary to apologise

later

for some

ofhis

early poems, wbicb in

tbe

words of Professor

Tillyard

are full of

sex .

Milton s nepbew

teils us tbat bis uncle used in bis 30 s

regularly to keep a gaudy day

witb

some young sparks

of

bis

acquaintance,

tbe beaux of tbose times . I

bope my

nepbew

will be equally tactful

if

tbe time ever comes.

Milton

smoked,

drank,

frequented tbe theatre, wore a sword

and was skilled

in

its use wbile

be

still

retained

bis sigbt. On bis

journey to Italy in 1638-9

Milton

was received

witb

enthusiasm in

literary circles. One ofbis friends, Antonio Malatesti, dedicated a


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hristopherHili 25

volume of poems to him. When

Victorian

scholars discovered that

the volume consisted ofmildly indecent sonnets, they were shocked

at

Malatesti s failure to

understand

Milton.

But Milton

was not

shocked. He continued tosend good wishes to Malatesti, and may

ha

ve

adopted

some ofhis tricks

ofward-pla

y for the hilarious double

entendres

and rude

jokes in

one

of his official ifences

ri the People ri

England

ofthe

1650s. One ofMilton s friends, who left him [1 in

his will, was Sir Peter Wentworth, whom Oliver Cromwell

denounced

as a

whoremaster .

Milton s

reputation as a libertine derived in part from the

pamphlets of the 1640s in which

he

defended divorce for incom-

patibility

oftemperament-a

suggestion which seems less start ling

now

than it did

then. What was especially shocking was

Milton s

offhand references to the only possible grounds for

divorce

marital

misconduct. He referred to casual

adultery ,

as but a

transient injury , soon repented, soon amended . In another

pamphlet he

referred to Iove

not

in Paradise

tobe

resisted ,

andin

Paradise

Lost to the

happier

Eden

Adam and

Eve

emparadised

in one another s arms . Adam and Eve had sex before

the

Fall,

whatever

hypocrites austerely talk .

Many

of

Milton s

Contern-

pararies thought sexual relations impossible in the

state of

innocence. The Fall itself was for Milton the result

of romantic

Iove:

How can I live

without

thee, how forgo

Thy sweet converse and Iove so dearly joined,

To live alone in these wild woods forlorn?

Flesh of flesh,

Bane

of

my hone

thou art,

and

from

thy

state

Mine

never shall be

parted,

bliss or woe.

lt s one ofthe problems ofMiltonian criticism thatjust after those

marvellous lines Milton wagged a disapproving fingerat Adam for

having

been fondly overcome with female

charm . Milton

was

never sure

whether

the Fall had been a fortunate occurrence or

not. You see now

why

I was

uncertain whether

Satan or

Milton

thought

Adam

was for

God

only, and Eve for God in him.

Milton

picked

up

a

lotofradical

ideas in Garnbridge in

the

1620s

andin

ltaly in

the

1630s. In

England

in the revolutionary 1640s

censorship totally broke down in this hitherto strictly supervised

society; freedom

of

assembly, freedom ofdiscussion, freedom

of

the

press-all

established themselves. There was a ferment

of debate


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Christopher

ili

27

own views on bishops, divorce, pre-publication censorship and

responsibility ofkings to their subjects. No man who knows aught

can be so stupid to deny that all men

naturally

were born free , he

proclaimed briskly in 1649,

at

a time when most

of

official

Europe

was denying precisely that. Kingsand magistrates, Milton insisted,

are deputies and commissioners of the people .

Milton

had one

foot in the camp

of

the successful revolution,

another in the camp

of

the radicals. When he became a govern

ment spokesman under the Commonwealth after

it

had broken

with the radicals,

he

defended the achievements

ofthe

Revolution

and

attacked its royalist opponents. He never attacked the

Levellers, even when his employers instructed

him

to

do

so

In

return

the Levellers continued to speak with respect of learned Mr

Milton

while

attacking

the

government

he served.

There

were

thus contradictions in Milton s

attitude

towards the English

Revolution, which are perhaps reflected in the tensions within his

poetry.

Milton s political career

ran

parallel with that

of

many

of

the

radicals. Originally intended for the church,

he

early decided

that

he

could

not

become a priest

und er

Laudianism, which

he attacked

in Lycidas He later described hirnself as church-outed by the

prelates ,

but

his decision was, I think, voluntary.

He

decided to

dedicate

himselfto

poetry. Originally he

planned

anational epic,

an Arthuriad, though

it

did

not

turn out quite like that.

He had

the

familiar guilt-feelings of a privileged intellectual in an unequal

society. Ease

and

pleasure were given thee , he told himself,

out

of

the sweat

of

other men -men not

just

his father.

Thus, he feit he

had

responsibilities to his society.

When the Revolution came he joined the campaign against

bishops.

We

should not think of 17th-century bishops as benign

rosy-cheeked old gentlemen. They were hard civil servants of an

autocratic arbitrary government. Archbishop

Laud

was virtual

prime minister and he packed the government with his supporters.

In

Star Chamber and High

Commission he tended to

support

the

most savage penalties for his opponents, such as flogging and

maiming. In 1639 the Archbishop of York thought it would be

good for

the church torevive

the practice

ofburning

heretics.

It

is

disgraceful and disgusting , Milton commented, that the Chris

tian religion should be supported by violence . In a pamphlet

of

1642 he consigned all bishops, ex o fficio and irrespective

of

their


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8 Milton and the English Revolution

private

virtues, to

an

eternity

ofhell.

Sofaras I know,

he

put

no

one else in hell, unlike

other

writers of epics such as his

contemporary Cowley or his predecessor Dante.

Milton

was especially severe against the dull conformity which

the ecclesiastical censorship enforced.

In

1637

he

had hirnself

suppressed some lines

of

social criticism from his masque

Comus:

they were restored only in the liberty of 1645:

If

every

just man that

now pines

with want

Had

but

a

moderate and

beseeming share

Ofthat which lewdly-pampered luxury

Now heaps

upon

some

f w

with vast excess

The giver would be better

thanked.

From the time of his earliest pamphlets Milton insisted on the

necessity

of

toleration.

Most

early spokesmen for toleration

excluded extremists like the Familists-a dissident sect roughly

analogaus to Maoists today. Milton said casually

that

Familists

reminded

him of the early Christians.

He

became a nationally

known figure thanks

to

Areopagitica to his divorce

pamphlets

and

to his defence

of

regicide

written

before

the

trial

and

execution

of

Charles I;

and

because

ofhis

scornful demolition of Eikon Basilike

the

fraudulent pamphlet

which

purported

to record Charles s

reflections in imprisonment.

So it was

natural

for Milton to be offered,

and

to accept, the

office

ofSecretary

for Foreign

Tongues

under the

Commonwealth.

He

wrote a series ofbooks, in

Latin,

defending the republic against

its traducers, in the face ofall Europe. The wit and brilliance ofhis

style gained

him an international reputation. Nothing of

such

quality

from

an Englishman

was expected , said

an

astonished

Dutchman.

Visitors to England in the 1650s

wanted

to see first

Oliver

Cromwell,

then John

Milton.

In

the

process

Milton

lost the use ofhis sight. His enemies

did

not

fail to declare this a

judgement

on him for defending regicide.

Milton

was convinced that he had sacrificed his eyes to the cause in

which he believed. He attributed to the English Revolution the

most heroic

and exemplary

achievements since

the

foundation

of

the world

a

most

remarkable

statement.

Did Milton

really

believe that the English Revolution was more heroic

and

exem

plary

than the life and death

of

Christ?

Or had

he just forgotten

him in the excitement ofeulogy? Either

explanation

prepares us for

the fact that Milton was unsound on the Trinity.


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3

ilton and the English Revolution

ted.) The practice

ofthe

saints interprets the commandments. f

the Bible appears to enjoin things contrary to the good of man,

including his temporal good,

our

understanding

of it

must be

mistaken.

Milton

was strongly opposed to

the

Superstition

of

scarecrow sins . All men can become sons

ofGod

upon earth. Hell

is not a place,

but

an internal state

of

mind.

As

Satan found,

it

accompanied him wherever he went. Mankind

can

attain on earth

to a Paradise within,

happier

far than that

of

Adam s Eden.

Ultimately,

when

all men are sons of God, God hirnself will

abdicate, for he will be all in all.

These doctrines could not be openly expressed in Paradise Lost

Paradise

Regained

or

Samsan

Agonistes.

Like Chekhov,

Milton

had

to

decide

what

he could get away with saying. But he knew that

Paradise Lost was a great poem, which had tobe published. We must

read

it

with these facts in mind.

Take

for instance the invocation to

Book VII:

I sing . . .

unchanged

To

hoarse

or

mute, though

fallenon

evil days,

On evil days

though

fallen and evil tongues,

In

darkness,

and

with dangers compassed

round,

And solitude.

What would the force

of

unchanged

be

for informed readers in

1667?

They

would know Milton, not as a great poet

but

as a

leading republican spokesman, defender of regicide, ofa free press,

of

divorce for incompatibility, and

of

religious toleration. Some

of

his readers

at

least would grasp

that

Milton was

unchanged

in

these principles. One good critic argued recently

that

Milton

could

have written an anti-

Trinitarian

poem in Paradise

Lost.

Since he

did not

do

so, we

can

disregard the evidence

of

the heretical De

Doctrina Christiana. This seems to me like saying

that

a Czech poet

today

could attack communism. In one sense, yes; but the

consequences for him if he were so foolish as to try to publish it

would be disastrous. The heresies are there in Paradise Lost

if

we

look for them carefully. Daniel

Defoe-a

trained

theologian

spotted anti-Trinitarianism there long before the De

Doctrina

Christiana

was published.

Milton

held

that

baptism

should be

performed in

running

water.

He

puts this

unorthodox doctrine

into Paradise Regained

but

in the

mouth of

Satan.

Who could hold

Milton responsible?

Many 19th-century critics eulogised the great hymn to wedded


11/14

Christopher

Hill

33

Iove

in

Book

IV

of

Paradise Lost

What Milton hailed was wedded

Iove as saints

and patriarchs

used . What are

patriarchs

doing

there? The point was missed by 19th- and

early 20th-century

critics,

but

in 17th-century

discussions

on marriage

patriarchs

mean

t

only one

th in polygamy. They were very holy, they were

models for us all; and they

had

many wives. Milton approved of

polygamy, as the

e

Doctrina makes clear.

He also-together

with

many

of

the radicals-

rejected

the

ceremony of church

marriage.

He

was careful to

make

it clear

that

Adam and Eve underwent no

such ceremony.

What

mattered was the mutual Iove

and

consent of

the partners:

that s why

divorce should be

permitted ifmutuallove

ceased.

God equals history equals fact.

The brutal

realities of the

restoration had forced Milton to rethink both God, and

man

as

an

agent ofhistorical change. Books

XI

and

XII

of

Paradise

Lostshow

the re-education offallen

Adam

by means of a preview of world

history,

just

as (Milton, no doubt, hoped) readers would be re

educated

by

his poem. Adam concluded

that

the way forward was:

By small

Accomplishing

great

things,

by

things

deemed weak

Subverting

worldly strong, and worldly wise

By simply meek.

Why,

we might ask, should Adam, Iord of the world,

undisputed

ruler

of his family of two, want to subvert worldly strong?

The

answer s clear as soon as we ask the question. Adam s words

are

directed

at

Milton s generation: teil them how to behave.

Key words

in Milton s great

poems

are

free and

stand .

The

rebel angels

and Adam

fell when they were free to stand.

In

Paradise Regained the

Son of God personifies all

men,

res1stmg

temptation to

wrong

action-mostly to

premature

political

action.

Victorious deeds

Flamed

in my

heart,

heroic acts, one while

To

rescue Israel from the Roman yoke,

Thence

to

subdue

and

quell all

the

earth

Brute violence

and proud

tyrannic power,

Till

truth

were freed,

and

equity restored.

But

that

people victor once was now vile

and

base, Deservedly

made servile .

The

Son ofGod does not reject political action: it s a


12/14

34

Mitton

and the

nglish

Revolution

matter of

choosing the right time. His final triumph in standing

alone on the pinnacle of the temple s followed

by

his descent to

resume his job

of

preaching, of re-education.

The hero

of Samson

Agonistes s a failed national Ieader,

imprisoned and blinded

. . . Promise was that

I

Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver:

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him

Eyeless

in

Gaza, at the mill with slaves,

Hirnself in bonds und er Philistian yoke

In

this

he

is like Milton, like his cause. Samson alone

s

to

blame

for

his failure. He s carefully associated with the Good Old Cause ,

with the New Model Army, and the Philistian yoke with the

Norman

yoke

of monarchy and

aristocracy, which

had

been a

leading myth

of the

Parliamentarian revolutionaries. Samson

learns from his

degradation

how to act correctly

when

the time for

political action

comes-just

as

Milton

seized his

opportunity

in

1673 (two years after

Samson

Agonistes was published) and as he was

simultaneously

preparing

the

De Doctrina

Christiana

for publication.

Samson stood, alone, in the temple, exposed to the jeering

of

the

Philistine aristocracy and priests;

and

God helped him to pull

down the temple on their heads. The vulgar only scaped who

stood without ,

added

Milton, in a line which has no Biblical

authority

whatsoever. The aristocracy and priests were the

principal enemies

ofthe Good Old

Cause in restoration England,

and Milton thought it a religious duty to hate God s enemies. Hell

s the destiny

of

all bishops. Those modern critics who shrink from

the vengefullesson of

Samson

Agonistes and suggest

that

Milton does

not intend us to approve of Samson, miss this bitter political

context. We should think

ofSamson in

terms ofa resistance Ieader

in occupied Europe under the Nazis, or of a black Ieader in

South

Africa today.

The

only time Milton asked hirnself how he could

prove the existence of God, he replied:

l t

s intolerable and

incredible that evil should be stronger than good; therefore God

exists . It s perhaps

not

a very good proof;

but it

teils us a lot

about

Milton.

After 1660 he was a revolutionary facing the utter and final

defeat ofhis revolution. We know better than he did how complete

the defeat was, so final

that

it s difficult for us to think back to a

time when hatred of bishops, of aristocracy and clergy, was a


13/14

Chris

topher ill

5

relig

ious duty

The virt

ues which

Milton m

ost admi

red are po

st-

lapsaria

n-courag

e, forti tude,

steadfast

ness in a

dversity,

hope

when h

ope seems

i mpossib

le . Milton

no dou

bt thoug

ht ofhim

self

among o

thers whe

n he wrot

e of

Abdie

l:

A m o n

g th e faith

less, faith

ful only h

e,

A m o n g

innumerab

le false un

m oved,

U nshaken

, unseduc

ed, unterr

ified,

H is

l oyal ty h

e kept, hi

s Iove, his

z eal;

No

r

num

ber

nor example

w ith

him wrough t

To swerve f

rom trut

h, o

r

chang

e his con

s tan t min

d

Th

ough sing

le . . . . H

is back

he turne

d

On th

ose p

roud towers, t

o swift de

struct ion

doomed.

Ala

s: the des

truct ion d

id not co

m e swiftly

.

W e

do not o

ften refle

ct what

out s t andi

ng courag

e Mi l ton

showed in

the t imi

ng

ofhis attack

s-on bishops

in M

arch 1641,

w h

en they ha

donly just

ceased

tobe the rul

ing power

s;on kings

hip

in D

ecem ber

1648, befo

reC harles

I was

brought to t

rial; and

on

monarchy

aga in i

n April 16

60, a month

before

Charles

II was

restored to hisfather s t hrone. At a t ime w hen other radicals w ere

prese

rving a

prudent sil

ence, Mil

ton publi

shed, ove

r his own

name,

TheRe

ady and asy W

ay to establ

ish a Fr

ee Commo

nwealth. s he

m

ust have

known,

it was a for

lorn hope

. If I be

no

t h

eard o

r

believ

ed , he w r

ote towar

ds the e

nd of he pam

phlet ,

the eve nt wil

l

bear

m e w itne

ssto have

spoken tr

uth; and I

in t he mea

nwhi le ha

ve

bo rne m y

witness,

not out

of season,

to the ch

urch

and to my

cou

n t ry . Som

e yea

rs la

ter

he

could sti

ll, in the

conclusion

of

Samson

A

gonistes

see the G

ood Old C

ause as

an undying

Phoenix,

which

Revives, r

eflourishe

s, then vig

orous mo

st

When

most u

nact ive d

eemed,

And

thoug

h

her

body d

ie, her fa

m e surviv

es

A se

cu lar bird

, ages

of

l

ives.

M il ton n

ever gave

u p.


14/14

6

M ilt

on an

d

the Engli

sh Re

voluti

on

N

OTE

S

1.

Lucy

H utc

hinso

n , Me

moirs o

the

Life o

C

olonel Hu

tchinso

n e

d. am

es

Suther land (Oxford Univ er

sity P

ress, 1

973) p

p. 31 ,

280.

2

. Z .N

. Rog

inskii

,

Lon

don

in 1

645-6

: new

materi

al abo

ut the jour

ney

o Geras

im

Semeon

ovich D

okhuri

mov

to Engla

nd

(Y aro s

lavl S

ta te P

edago

gic al

Instit

ute,

1960)

pp. 11

15

(i

n Rus

sian).

3.

D a

vid A

ers an

d Bo

b Hod

ge,

' Ra

tiona

l

B

urning

: M

ilton o

n Sex

an

d

M arri

age ',

in Aers

, H od

ge and

G.K

ress(e

ds),Li

teratur

e

Lang

uage

and

Soci

ery

in

E

ngland

158

)-168

0 (Du

blin,

1981)

pp .

143-4

.

milton and the english revolution by christopher hill

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