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1632 |
'On
Shakespeare' |
Printed in the Second Folio of Shakespeare's works
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1637 |
Comus |
Milton's masque was written and first performed in 1634, with music by
Henry Lawes. It was presented in honour of the inauguration of John
Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, as Lord President of Wales, and three of
his children played the parts of the two brothers and the young lady
who confront the tempter Comus. It was published as A Maske
Presented at Ludlow Castle.
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1638 |
Lycidas |
Milton's elegy was
written in memory of Edward King, a younger contemporary of Milton at
Christ's College who had gone on to become a Fellow, and who drowned
at sea in 1637. 'Lycidas' was a contribution to the Cambridge memorial
volume, Justa Edwardo King Naufrago. The poem ends, famously,
'Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new'.
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1641 |
Of Reformation
Touching Church Discipline in England
Of Prelatical Episcopacy
Animadversions
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The first three of
Milton's polemical works, published anonymously, joined in the
long-running debate about episcopacy (the government of the church by
bishops), to which Milton was violently opposed. Each subsequent work
was a reply to another by the opposing side.
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1642 |
The Reason of Church
Government Urged against Prelaty
An Apology
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In The Reason of
Church Government Milton moves beyond the presbyterian position of
the earlier pamphlets (that is, that the national church should be
governed not by bishops but by church elders) and towards support for
toleration of independent congregations. This, the first anti-prelatical
tract to be published under Milton's name and including some
celebrated autobiographical passages, was followed by An Apology,
the last of the five tracts, in which Milton answers the personal
attacks included in A Modest Confutation, written in answer to
his own Animadversions.
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1643 |
The Doctrine and
Discipline of Divorce |
This tract (full title:
'The doctrine and discipline of divorce, restor'd to the good of both
sexes from the bondage of canon law and other mistakes to Christian
freedom, guided by the rule of charity') was a response to Milton's
own experience of marriage breakdown. Divorce could only be granted by
parliament; for ordinary people the only option was a judicial
separation granted by the ecclesiastical courts, but this did not
permit remarriage. In arguing that a man should be able to divorce his
wife if the pair had lost all spiritual and emotional communion,
Milton anticipates the position reached in English law only in 1977,
that irretrievable breakdown is the ground for divorce. A revised
version of the tract was published in 1644.
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1644 |
Of Education
The Judgement of Martin Bucer Concerning Divorce
Areopagitica: A Speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed
printing, to the Parliament of England
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Milton had been teaching
since his return to England in 1639 and was asked by the educational
reformer Samuel Hartlib to write up his views on education. Including
a huge range of languages and subjects, the Miltonic curriculum
demands a Milton as teacher and as pupil to have any chance.
Milton's second divorce tract was met with an attempt to suppress
these and other unregistered and unlicensed books, and this may have
prompted Milton's composition of Areopagitica, his defence of
the right to publish without censorship. Written in the form of a
classical oration, it has become a landmark in the history of the
defence of free speech.
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1645 |
Tetrachordon and
Colasterion
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Milton's third and fourth
divorce tracts.
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1646 |
Poems of Mr. John
Milton, Both English and Latin...1645 |
Poems…1645 gathers
much of Milton's early work, including 'On the morning of Christ's
nativity', 'L'allegro' and 'Il penseroso', his various sonnets
(including those in Italian), 'Lycidas', Comus, and poems in
Latin and Greek. The book was probably published in January of 1646
(the new year used to be reckoned from 26 March, so this was still
1645 by the old way of reckoning).
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1649 |
The Tenure of Kings
and Magistrates
Observations upon the Articles of Peace with the Irish Rebels
Eikonoklastes
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1649 was perhaps the most
extraordinary year in English history, and it was one of Milton's
busiest. Written during the trial of King Charles I in January 1649,
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates was published a fortnight
after his execution. It argues, as its title page announces, that 'it
is lawful … for any who have the power, to call to account a Tyrant or
wicked King and after due conviction, to depose, and put him to
death'. Within four days of its publication, the House of Lords and
the monarchy had both been abolished, and England had become in effect
a republic. Milton was made Secretary for Foreign Tongues; his duties
extended quickly from translating international diplomatic
correspondence into the diplomatic language, Latin, to advising on
foreign policy. Milton's attitude to the Irish, expressed in
Observations, was reflected in the violent Irish policy of the
Cromwellian regime.
Eikonoklastes ('breaker of images') was a reply, commissioned
by the council of state, to the hugely popular Eikon Basilike
('image of the king'), which had been published within days of King
Charles's execution
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1651 |
Defensio pro populo
Anglicano ('defence of the English people') |
Another officially
commissioned work, the Defensio was a reply to the Defensio
regia pro Carolo I ('the royal defence of Charles I) written by
Claudius Salmasius and published on the continent. Milton put the
delay in producing it down to his own poor health. One of the brothers
who had performed in Comus wrote in his copy (in Latin) 'this
book is most deserving of burning, its author of the gallows'.
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1654 |
Defensio Secunda |
Milton's reply to an
anonymous royalist tract published in 1652 in The Hague, which
included violent attacks on Milton. Oliver Cromwell was now Lord
Protector, and so Milton's republicanism is toned down somewhat. The
work includes further autobiographical material.
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1655 |
Defensio Pro Se
('defence of himself') |
Milton had wrongly
accused Alexander More of being the author of the anonymous tract, and
had attacked him in the Defensio Secunda. More replied, and
Milton replied to his reply.
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1659 |
A Treatise of Civil
Power in Ecclesiastical Causes
Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings out of
the Church
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The full title of A
Treatise of Civil Power continues: 'shewing that it is not lawfull
for any power on earth to compell in matters of religion'. Milton
argues against the Erastian position (a centralised, state-controlled
church). Relatedly, the Considerations takes the Independent
line against tithes, compulsory taxes levied by local churches that
were seen as benefiting both the national church and the landed
families whose sons were its vicars and rectors.
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1660 |
The Ready and Easy Way
To Establish a Free Commonwealth
Brief Notes upon a Late Sermon
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At the eleventh hour,
with the restoration of monarchy all but inevitable, the staunch
republican Milton was still arguing against what the title page called
'the inconveniences and dangers of readmitting kingship in this
nation'. A number of other shorter tracts dictated in these months
were published posthumously, and in one case not until the twentieth
century. Milton's position was not so much a democratic as a
republican one - the country should be ruled by a grand council, an
aristocracy of virtue.
Brief Notes, a reply to a royalist sermon preached in the last
weeks before the Restoration, was Milton's last publication for some
years. His political career was over, and his life was now in danger.
He went into hiding after the Restoration was proclaimed in May, an
arrest warrant was issued in June, and in August copies of his books
were publicly burned. After a brief spell in prison, however, he seems
to have been pardoned.
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1667 |
Paradise Lost (in
ten books) |
Milton's masterpiece
tells of the fall of Satan and the rebel angels, and of that of Adam
and Eve, in a complex narrative structure that looks back to the
creation and the wars in heaven and forward to human history. Its
beginnings go back to around 1640, but it was mostly written in the
years 1658-63, straddling the Restoration. Concerned as it is with
failed rebellions, proud leaders, and duty to God, the work tempts
royalists to associate Satan with Cromwell, and republicans to see
King Charles as the rebel angel. But it is not that simple. Above all
it is an investigation of the theology of the fall and of human
nature, and an epic poem to rival those of Homer and Virgil. It was
reissued in 1668 with a new title page, arguments prefixed to each
book, and the note on 'The Verse', where Milton argues that his blank
verse, by doing without rhyme, is 'an example set, the first in
English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the
troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming'. Even in its versification,
the work is built on political analogies.
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1669 |
Accidence Commenced
Grammar
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A Latin grammar book.
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1670
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History of Britain
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The History is
concerned with ancient Britain, down to the Norman conquest.
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1671
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Paradise Regained…to
which is added Samson Agonistes
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Paradise Regained
is a shorter epic supplement to Paradise Lost, telling of
Satan's temptation of Christ in the desert. Samson Agonistes is
hard to date, and may go back to the 1640s or be one of Milton's last
works. It is modelled closely on ancient Greek tragedy. With its tale
of the old, blind soldier of God reduced to slavery but able in a last
heroic gesture to bring the walls crashing down on his – and God's –
enemies, it is hard not to read it as infused with Milton's own
experiences.
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1672
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Art of Logic
(Artis logicae plenior institutio)
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A derivative treatise in
the Ramist tradition.
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1673
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Of True Religion
Poems, &c. upon Several
Occasions |
Milton's first polemical
tract since the Restoration enters the debates about religious
toleration: non-conformists should be tolerated; Catholics should not.
Poems
(1673) is a revised edition of Milton's minor poems, adding a number
of poems and translations written after
Poems…1645
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1674
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Epistolae Familiares
('letters to friends') and Prolusiones (college exercises)
Second edition of
Paradise Lost
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The volume of familiar
letters and prolusions, dating back to Milton's earliest years, shows
his concern, in what was to be his last year, for his own posthumous
reputation.
The revised edition of Paradise Lost divides the work into
twelve books (matching Virgil's Aeneid) and adds a commendatory
poem by Andrew Marvell.
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Selected
Posthumously Published Works
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1681
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Character of the Long
Parliament
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A digressive section of
the History of Britain omitted from the printed text.
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1682
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A Brief History of
Moscovia
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1694 |
Letters of State |
Full title: Letters of
state written by Mr. John Milton, to most of the sovereign princes and
republicks of Europe, from the year 1649, till the year 1659; to which
is added, an account of his life; together with several of his poems,
and a catalogue of his works, never before printed. The first such
edition had been printed on the continent in 1676
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1694-8
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A Complete Collection of
the Historical, Political and Miscellaneous Works…both English and
Latin
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1825 |
De doctrina Christiana |
A compilation of Milton's
theological writings not given final shape. After an unsuccessful
attempt to publish the manuscript shortly after Milton’s death, it was
impounded by the government and was rediscovered, in a cupboard in
Whitehall, in 1823.
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