Milton’s True Character As A Writer Is That He Is An Ancient, But Born Two Thousand Years After His Time…All His Images Are Pure Antique. (Jonathan Richardson) How Valuable Is This Approach To Milton Notes

Milton's true character as a Writer is that he is an Ancient, but born two thousand years after his time...all his images are Pure Antique. (Jonathan Richardson) How valuable is this approach to Milton Describing Milton as an "Ancient" is indeed useful as it points to the interesting issue of reputation within Milton's writing. How he wished to characterize his role as writer and poet in a time not only of political upheaval but when the role of writer was still being explored and mapped out, is reflected in his choice of form and use of imagery. Despite Richardson's remark, that Milton was "born two thousand years after his time" the fact that Milton tended to reach back to the past in search of classical imagery, suggests not a sense of anachronism but rather a writer who was searching for the best language and forms in which to express his dissatisfaction with the present. In the tumultuous period of the 1640 to Milton's death, a time which included civil war, regicide, restoration and then the impending 'Glorious Revolution' of William of Orange (1688), Milton explored different metaphorical expressions and literary forms in order to express his political and religious concerns, such as in Aeropagitica and his earlier prelate tracts. Milton's shaped many of his works for political purposes and the Ancients, with their classical associations of ideal commonwealths, free speech and an elevated status of national poet, provided him with the ideal rhetoric. Milton may have used classical imagery as a tool, but it is also ,as Richardson pointed out, part of his character, or more accurately 'self presentation', one which he seems ultimately to have been ambivalent towards as can be seen in the two variant publications of Paradise Lost. In Milton's 1644 speech Areopagitica, his use of classical imagery is specifically tailored to serve a political purpose yet it also reveals his own views towards his role as a writer. Milton's use of classical imagery to persuade his opponent is clear within Aeropagitica. In describing the follies of censorship and how it will only limit mans ability to exercise his reason, Milton offers Parliament two models for emulation; either the Classical commonwealth's who supported free speech, or the Papish states which do not. The eloquence of Milton's translation of Euripides is contrasted with his visual depiction of the disease of censorship, which "crept out of the Inquisition, was catch't up by our Prelates and have caught some of our Presbyters". By comparing the licensing act with the Catholic "projects" of the tyrannical societies of Spain with the enlightened policies of the ancients within a form which itself recalls those writers and commonwealths of antiquity which did not support censorship, Milton convincingly depicts the dichotomy between enlightenment and tyranny. Milton supports this methods and avoids any accusations of atheism in his stout appeal to the classics, by reminding his listeners how the apostle Paul in Athens preaches to the Athenians, also at the Areogaus, and uses the language of Aratus, a pagan poet (Acts 17). Milton states "Paul thought it no defilement to insert into Holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek poets, and one of them a Tragedian". The use of classical and biblical allusions here shows an attempt to reconcile these two aspects of Milton's argument. By demonstrating how Roman and classical learning can reside within the boundaries of Christian morality, Milton appeals both to faith and to reason and ensures that this use of classical models is applicable to contemporary society The title of Milton's speech is derived from the classical Areopagititcus of Isocrates' speech 'On the Areogus' which itself outlines a program for political reform, namely the degradation of the judges of the highest Greek court - the Aerogaus. Isocrates speech, given at the end of the Social War, commends the ancient constitution of Athens and so provided Milton with the perfect form for emulation here. Milton's speech, given also during a time of civil war uses a similar technique 

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