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Areopagitica and Of Education: With Autobiographical Passages from Other Prose Works
In one volume. The classic defense of intellectual liberty and the freedom to publish, and Milton's plan for training rulers to be fit to govern. Also includes three autobiographical passages from other prose works. Edited by George H. Sabine, who provides a short introduction, this edition also contains a list of principal dates in the life of Milton and a bibliography.
110 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1644
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About the author
John Milton
3,766 books2,236 followersPeople best know John Milton, English scholar, for
Paradise Lost
, the epic poem of 1667 and an account of fall of humanity from grace.
Beelzebub, one fallen angel in Paradise Lost, of John Milton, lay in power next to Satan.
Belial, one fallen angel, rebelled against God in Paradise Lost of John Milton.
John Milton, polemicist, man of letters, served the civil Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote in blank verse at a time of religious flux and political upheaval.
Prose of John Milton reflects deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. He wrote in Latin, Greek, and Italian and achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica (1644) in condemnation of censorship before publication among most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and the press of history.
William Hayley in biography of 1796 called and generally regarded John Milton, the "greatest ... author," "as one of the preeminent writers in the ... language," though since his death, critical reception oscillated often on his republicanism in the centuries. Samuel Johnson praised, "with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the ... mind," though he, a Tory and recipient of royal patronage, described politics of Milton, an "acrimonious and surly republican."
Because of his republicanism, centuries of British partisanship subjected John Milton.
Beelzebub, one fallen angel in Paradise Lost, of John Milton, lay in power next to Satan.
Belial, one fallen angel, rebelled against God in Paradise Lost of John Milton.
John Milton, polemicist, man of letters, served the civil Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote in blank verse at a time of religious flux and political upheaval.
Prose of John Milton reflects deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. He wrote in Latin, Greek, and Italian and achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica (1644) in condemnation of censorship before publication among most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and the press of history.
William Hayley in biography of 1796 called and generally regarded John Milton, the "greatest ... author," "as one of the preeminent writers in the ... language," though since his death, critical reception oscillated often on his republicanism in the centuries. Samuel Johnson praised, "with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the ... mind," though he, a Tory and recipient of royal patronage, described politics of Milton, an "acrimonious and surly republican."
Because of his republicanism, centuries of British partisanship subjected John Milton.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 17, 2025
4.5 ⭐ 5 for the importance of the subjects at hand and Milton's thorough, well-reasoned treatment of them; 4 for personal enjoyment
Areopagitica was long but very eloquent and incredibly thorough in its defense of free speech, at least in terms of religious writings and publications.
Of Education was inspiring if a bit unattainable.
The other bits included here were forgettable and difficult to understand because I personally didn't have much context for them and this edition provides none that I could see. The very last one, which was al in defense of his own work and stance on various issues, was interesting, as he went into his autobiography some.
Areopagitica was long but very eloquent and incredibly thorough in its defense of free speech, at least in terms of religious writings and publications.
Of Education was inspiring if a bit unattainable.
The other bits included here were forgettable and difficult to understand because I personally didn't have much context for them and this edition provides none that I could see. The very last one, which was al in defense of his own work and stance on various issues, was interesting, as he went into his autobiography some.
September 5, 2018
Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
March 16, 2017
Great book. Extraordinary example of a copious mind. A strong defense of press freedoms and a great primer on classical education.
December 17, 2011
@ http://literating.wordpress.com/2011/...
A couple of weeks ago, a dear friend and mentor of mine committed suicide.
I don’t say that to “hook” you or to manipulate life circumstances for hits on this site. For one, I’m sick of all that. For another, I could care less if no one but my mother, my grandmother and my wife reads this . No offense, Literators. I still love you , but I’m writing this for something other than inter-tainment.
His funeral was the most hope-filled funeral I think I’ve been too. That might be superlative, but against death’s contrast their theme stood stark: A Celebration of Life. I know many readers here don’t follow Jesus, so I refuse to preach.
However I will say that this particular friend wore a white t-shirt and jeans everywhere. He was the most approachable servant of Christ I’ve met. Pimps and crazies and business men all had conversations with this guy due to his unassuming undershirt and denim. We reserved one day every semester where we’d all go to chapel dressed just like him (I attended a “Christian College”). By his attire, by his smile, by his manner he came ready to serve other people. As you might guess, his funeral was packed.
I don’t know why he did it, but I do know this – after seeing the grief on everyone’s faces, feeling it in my own soul, it was the most selfish thing he did in his otherwise selfless life. It’s personal for me. I spent a year in high school contemplating suicide every day. Every gun I walked by (it was Southern Illinois – there’s lots of guns), every knife I picked up, every unscrewing of a pill bottle taunted me to end it all. Death, I reasoned, was not so hard as life.
I finish volume three of the Harvard Classics this week. It’s a compilation of Francis Bacon (who sucked), John Milton (who challenged me), and Thomas Browne. In passing, I’ll say that Milton’s education tractate, if followed to the letter, would raise up the greatest generation of students the world has seen. But we’re looking beyond Milton…
Thomas Browne reformed me. There’s no other word for it. Had I a garauntee of your attention, I’d quote him for 3,000 words, but we’ll focus on one section:
They are in extreams, that can allow a man to be his own Assassine, and so highly extol the end and suicide of Cato. This is indeed not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live. Herein Religion hath taught us a noble example; for all the valiant acts of Curtius, Scevola, or Codrus, do not parallel or match that of one Job.
He’s saying it takes balls to live. Old guys like Browne considered that kind of courage a virtue, calling it “fortitude.” I refuse to criticise my friend – peace be upon him. I learned much from his life. In fact his life, not his death, teaches me. If his death contradicts his life, it’s not because his life was a sham but because he faltered for a moment. Thanks to my past and as someone disturbed by the scenes in The Happening, I sympathize with him.
Browne told me this week that Job’s braver than Absalom. Absalom dared death in the midst of Revolution. Job dared to live in the midst of suffering. Though I wouldn’t have guessed it as a suicidal highschool sophomore, I now live a life of bliss. I’m encouraged by Browne because his Religio Medici reminded me of something: Jesus, the Author of Life, chose to live in the midst of suffering and temptation long before he accepted his comission to die. Should it surprise us that his followers talk about resurrection so often? For the Word of Life, coming into the world as a baby was infinitely braver than dying as an adult.
May we dare to live in living memory of my friend.
The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.
– John Milton, Tractate on Education
Words I learned from Milton & Browne:
horoscope – diagram of the heavens
enveagle – to entice, lure, ensnare by flattery or artful talk
rusticity – rural character or life
orison – a prayer
metempsuchosis – the transmigration of the soul, especially from a human to an animal
evanges – the four Gospels
desert – any place lacking something
yoeman – a petty officer
muing – high pitched sounds from a cat or a gull
staid – of settled or sedated character
porveying – to provide, furnish or supply
malmsey – a morning draft of wine
pusillanimous – lacking courage or resolution
expunction – to strike or blot out; to erase
contagion – communication of disease by direct or indirect contact
florrid – reddish; ruddy, (2) flowery; ornate
scurrilous – grossly or obscenely abusive – The New York City police continue their scurrilous attacks on Occupy Wall St. protestors.
sundry – various; diverses
courtiership – the work of flattery
pictures are linked to originals
– (1) Borrowed from Flickr
– (2) Borrowed from University of Glascow
also....
Aeropagita by Milton improved my Harvard Classic experience exponentially. Milton’s arguing for the freedom of speech, freedom of the press in a time where the government passed laws that prevented people from speaking out against it. The resemblances between his culture of censorship and our culture of deafening propaganda bear resemblances to one another, despite being at opposite ends of the spectrum. I’m reminded of the #occupywallst movement…
A couple of weeks ago, a dear friend and mentor of mine committed suicide.
I don’t say that to “hook” you or to manipulate life circumstances for hits on this site. For one, I’m sick of all that. For another, I could care less if no one but my mother, my grandmother and my wife reads this . No offense, Literators. I still love you , but I’m writing this for something other than inter-tainment.
His funeral was the most hope-filled funeral I think I’ve been too. That might be superlative, but against death’s contrast their theme stood stark: A Celebration of Life. I know many readers here don’t follow Jesus, so I refuse to preach.
However I will say that this particular friend wore a white t-shirt and jeans everywhere. He was the most approachable servant of Christ I’ve met. Pimps and crazies and business men all had conversations with this guy due to his unassuming undershirt and denim. We reserved one day every semester where we’d all go to chapel dressed just like him (I attended a “Christian College”). By his attire, by his smile, by his manner he came ready to serve other people. As you might guess, his funeral was packed.
I don’t know why he did it, but I do know this – after seeing the grief on everyone’s faces, feeling it in my own soul, it was the most selfish thing he did in his otherwise selfless life. It’s personal for me. I spent a year in high school contemplating suicide every day. Every gun I walked by (it was Southern Illinois – there’s lots of guns), every knife I picked up, every unscrewing of a pill bottle taunted me to end it all. Death, I reasoned, was not so hard as life.
I finish volume three of the Harvard Classics this week. It’s a compilation of Francis Bacon (who sucked), John Milton (who challenged me), and Thomas Browne. In passing, I’ll say that Milton’s education tractate, if followed to the letter, would raise up the greatest generation of students the world has seen. But we’re looking beyond Milton…
Thomas Browne reformed me. There’s no other word for it. Had I a garauntee of your attention, I’d quote him for 3,000 words, but we’ll focus on one section:
They are in extreams, that can allow a man to be his own Assassine, and so highly extol the end and suicide of Cato. This is indeed not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live. Herein Religion hath taught us a noble example; for all the valiant acts of Curtius, Scevola, or Codrus, do not parallel or match that of one Job.
He’s saying it takes balls to live. Old guys like Browne considered that kind of courage a virtue, calling it “fortitude.” I refuse to criticise my friend – peace be upon him. I learned much from his life. In fact his life, not his death, teaches me. If his death contradicts his life, it’s not because his life was a sham but because he faltered for a moment. Thanks to my past and as someone disturbed by the scenes in The Happening, I sympathize with him.
Browne told me this week that Job’s braver than Absalom. Absalom dared death in the midst of Revolution. Job dared to live in the midst of suffering. Though I wouldn’t have guessed it as a suicidal highschool sophomore, I now live a life of bliss. I’m encouraged by Browne because his Religio Medici reminded me of something: Jesus, the Author of Life, chose to live in the midst of suffering and temptation long before he accepted his comission to die. Should it surprise us that his followers talk about resurrection so often? For the Word of Life, coming into the world as a baby was infinitely braver than dying as an adult.
May we dare to live in living memory of my friend.
The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.
– John Milton, Tractate on Education
Words I learned from Milton & Browne:
horoscope – diagram of the heavens
enveagle – to entice, lure, ensnare by flattery or artful talk
rusticity – rural character or life
orison – a prayer
metempsuchosis – the transmigration of the soul, especially from a human to an animal
evanges – the four Gospels
desert – any place lacking something
yoeman – a petty officer
muing – high pitched sounds from a cat or a gull
staid – of settled or sedated character
porveying – to provide, furnish or supply
malmsey – a morning draft of wine
pusillanimous – lacking courage or resolution
expunction – to strike or blot out; to erase
contagion – communication of disease by direct or indirect contact
florrid – reddish; ruddy, (2) flowery; ornate
scurrilous – grossly or obscenely abusive – The New York City police continue their scurrilous attacks on Occupy Wall St. protestors.
sundry – various; diverses
courtiership – the work of flattery
pictures are linked to originals
– (1) Borrowed from Flickr
– (2) Borrowed from University of Glascow
also....
Aeropagita by Milton improved my Harvard Classic experience exponentially. Milton’s arguing for the freedom of speech, freedom of the press in a time where the government passed laws that prevented people from speaking out against it. The resemblances between his culture of censorship and our culture of deafening propaganda bear resemblances to one another, despite being at opposite ends of the spectrum. I’m reminded of the #occupywallst movement…
January 31, 2016
Milton is often viewed as the first advocate of freedom of speech (he opposed a law requiring prior permission for publications). He is a brilliant writer, and though his archaic style can be challenging, there are nonetheless numerous passages so lucid or muscular that they are impossible to overlook. "[W]hen complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained." "Who kills a good man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself." About censorship, it "hinders and retards the importation of our richest merchandise, truth."
Though these quotes may resonate with us in modern liberal society, Milton is not the open society advocate that many presume him to be. To him, truth is the highest value, but was personified in Christ, and is only being advanced again, after centuries of repression by the Catholic Church, as a result of the Reformation. In fact, he goes so far as to grant England a special role in the coming of this religious "enlightenment" of Reformation, but complains that England could have had the primary role (rather than Luther and Calvin) had Wycliffe not been repressed. Milton observes, critically, that "revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth." Unlike modern theorists of the open society, Milton holds there is a Truth to which we can progress, but also from which we can recede; unlimited disputation is not a value in and of itself, it is a value insofar as it points us closer toward truth. Thus, "if all cannot be of one mind - as who looks they should be? -- this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled."
Milton is a pioneer of free speech, but is clearly not an advocate of the notion of a wholly open society.
Though these quotes may resonate with us in modern liberal society, Milton is not the open society advocate that many presume him to be. To him, truth is the highest value, but was personified in Christ, and is only being advanced again, after centuries of repression by the Catholic Church, as a result of the Reformation. In fact, he goes so far as to grant England a special role in the coming of this religious "enlightenment" of Reformation, but complains that England could have had the primary role (rather than Luther and Calvin) had Wycliffe not been repressed. Milton observes, critically, that "revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth." Unlike modern theorists of the open society, Milton holds there is a Truth to which we can progress, but also from which we can recede; unlimited disputation is not a value in and of itself, it is a value insofar as it points us closer toward truth. Thus, "if all cannot be of one mind - as who looks they should be? -- this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled."
Milton is a pioneer of free speech, but is clearly not an advocate of the notion of a wholly open society.
April 12, 2022
An excellent text for dismantling prejudices that many new readers may have concerning the grand old men of the English literary canon. Much of Milton's radical argument in favour of free speech and in opposition to censorship remains pertinent and persuasive, and even the inconsistencies deserve attention.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews