Summary (Part 1, argument from history)
“Areopagitica” is an essay defending free speech by the English poet and revolutionary intellectual John Milton. It is presented as a speech delivered before Parliament, but was actually published as a pamphlet. Nevertheless, the essay begins as though Parliament was in the room, by addressing them directly.
Milton states that the truest praise is coupled with critique, and that his willingness to criticize the Commonwealth showcases his loyalty to the government because it proves that he is willing to take risks to improve his country. He also states that no government will ever be perfect, and instead the goal should be to have open conversation and debate, so that problems can be aired and addressed. Milton urges his audience to judge his words on their own merit, rather than considering them in light of Milton’s low rank.
He begins the body of the essay by summarizing the parts of his argument against censorship laws. First, he will outline the history of censorship laws, proving that only the worst societies have adopted them. Then, he will prove that censorship laws will never succeed in suppressing the dangerous beliefs they are intended to address. Finally, he will argue that censorship laws will result in the “discouragement of learning, and the stop of truth.”
Before embarking on his argument, Milton mounts a powerful testimony to the rights of books. He declares that they are not dead objects, but rather have their own life, because they, like their authors, have the power to act upon the world. He concedes that books can be dangerous, but asserts that there is also danger in killing a book, because their loss can also strip society of truths that cannot be recovered.
Milton begins the body of his argument with a historical account. He argues that the great societies have favored open speech and debate, while tyrannical and corrupt societies have embraced censorship. He begins with ancient Athens, a society many people in the Renaissance looked up to.
Milton states that the Athenian government only banned books in very particular cases—if they were “blasphemous and atheistical” or “libellous.” He goes on to clarify that blasphemy was defined narrowly—many books expressed differing religious opinions, and even heretical religious ideas were allowed to circulate. He also notes that it was legal to read crass comedies, whose performance was forbidden, and that Plato found value in these same comedies despite his own strong moral character.
Rome, similarly, did not ban books. At first, their society was too rough and unlearned to have much reading, but once there were more books available, the Senate fought to protect their availability, even when older and more conservative members of the government tried to restrict what people were allowed to read. Again, only those who committed libel, or who wrote against the Gods, met with punishment. Book banning only became common when the empire descended into tyranny.
When Rome became Christian, laws surrounding reading were similarly liberal. Only “grand heretics” were banned, while others, even those who still believed in the old gods, were allowed to write. Milton argues that it was only in 800, when the early Christian Church became “Papist,” a derogatory Protestant term for Catholic, that censorship laws were instituted. Two or three “glutton friars” had to read every book before it could be approved.
Milton’s version of the history of book censorship allows him to argue that book censorship has only ever been practiced in tyrannical and antichristian societies. He suggests that to ban a book before it has entered the world is inherently unjust, because the book is being tried before the government knows what effect it will have on society, in effect condemning it at the moment of its birth, something we would never do to a human baby.
He concludes this section of the essay by defending the validity of his historical argument. Milton responds to the contention that bad societies might have come up with a good idea by arguing that there were also many good societies and governments in history which never came up with the idea of book censorship. Therefore, there must be something about censorship that is inherently unattractive to good societies, which leads them not to institute it.
Analysis
1644 was a year of profound political instability in England. Two years prior, civil war had broken out between the royalists, or supporters of King Charles I, and Parliamentarians, or supporters of the English legislature. For years, Charles had neglected parliament, ruling by decree rather than collaborating with the legislative body. This all came to a head in 1642, when Charles and Parliament raised their own rival armies and began fighting for control of the English government. The fighting persisted until 1651, when the Parliamentarian Army triumphed, and Oliver Cromwell, its leader, became the first English leader who did not justify his rule by claiming royal blood.
In 1644, when Milton wrote "Areopagitica," the war was ongoing, and it wasn’t clear who would win. However, just the idea that Parliament could rise up against the king and seek to replace him made it clear that radically different ways of organizing society were possible. Milton was a firm supporter of the revolution, and yet his address to Parliament criticizes their policy of book censorship. In the beginning of the speech, he frames that critique as a form of true patriotism—it is his love for the new republican government which makes him want to improve it. Indeed, his preface to the pamphlet is itself a powerful defense of free speech: a perfect government is not possible, so the ideal society is led by a flexible government that listens to criticism and seeks to improve. Milton believed he could fight for that ideal government.
On the surface, his first argument, based on an appeal to history, seems pretty straightforward. Good governments, Milton argues, have not pursued censorship laws, while bad and tyrannical ones have. However, Milton is also appealing to a new form of English identity, which will become increasingly important as the essay continues. Parliament was primarily made up of members of the nobility, most of whom were terrified by the prospect of genuine people’s rule. Nevertheless, they understood themselves as constructing a new kind of government, free of the antiquated domination of a single monarch, and instead controlled by a broader segment of the population.
When Milton refers to Athens and Rome, he’s referencing two societies famous in Renaissance Europe for their democratic governments. Indeed, the very idea of the Renaissance was a return to the glory and justice of the classical world, and a departure from the perceived corruption and intellectual stagnation of the Middle Ages. Milton is suggesting that the Parliamentarians will not be able to bring the classical world to England if they fail to embrace the free speech which strengthened Athenian democratic society.
Conversely, Milton associates censorship with Catholic governments, which the Parliamentarians sought to distinguish themselves from. In the early sixteenth century, England left the Catholic Church, and King Henry VIII founded the Church of England in its stead. The replacement of Catholicism with Protestantism became an important part of the English cultural myth—people prided themselves on having ousted a religion many saw as repressive, greedy, and even satanic. However, what exactly it meant to be Protestant remained unstable. Henry VIII kept many Catholic practices in place, merely shifting power from the Pope to the King. Over the next century, different monarchs were varying degrees of radical, with some supporting a Church of England that closely resembled the Catholic Church, and others pushing for the abolition of fundamental aspects of Catholic religious practice.
Charles I was a fairly moderate Protestant. His wife was Catholic, and the man he appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury, or the head of the Church of England, promoted practices (like special clothing for priests and ornate decorations) that many saw as un-Protestant. The Parliamentarians, in contrast, were radical Protestants, who wanted the entire church hierarchy upended, and all the pomp and luxury of Catholic religious practice stripped away. When Milton argues that book censorship was practiced by the Catholic church, he’s not just choosing a tyrannical, book-banning government at random, but rather suggesting that embracing free speech would be another way for the Parliamentarians to free England from its Catholic past.
Reading this section of "Areopagitica," it’s important to remember that Milton isn’t giving a history lesson. He was a scholar, and his care in identifying the exceptions to Athenian and Roman free speech suggests that he prioritized being truthful, even when it risked weakening his argument. However, ultimately his goal was to argue against a government policy. The examples he selects are strategic, drawing on the Parliamentarian desire to identify with ancient Greece and Rome, and to differentiate themselves from the Catholic Church.
At the heart of the essay, then, is not a historical account, but rather a deep sense of the value of books. That comes through most strongly towards the beginning of the essay, when Milton writes, “books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.” Milton sees books as preserving the soul and the intellect of their authors, and unleashing that personhood in the world. He goes on to compare book censorship to executing a baby at birth: both, for him, are cases of punishment before the crime. Milton’s suggestion here is radical even by contemporary standards. He’s presenting books as persons deserving of legal rights akin to human beings, on the grounds of their capacity to act in society as human beings do.
