Scholars such as British historian Dr. Fay Bound Alberti suggest that concerns over loneliness arose in Milton’s time because of cultural shifts away from a congregational society toward more individualism. According to Alberti, “Since God was always nearby, a person was never truly alone”—at least, this was the assumption before the 1600s—so there was no need to warn anyone against isolation. But the trends that paved the way for the Industrial Revolution changed that. “The growth of the consumer economy, the declining influence of religion, and the popularity of evolutionary biology all
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