Talk:John Milton

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Contents

[edit] Spiritual Beliefs

An emphasis on Milton's spiritual beliefs in relation to works would be of great value.

[edit] Copyrights sale

Surely it's bollocks to say that Milton sold a copyright for £10 in 1667, when copyright did not even exist until 1709?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright

Also, £10 in 1667 had approximately the same purchasing power as £1000 today.

(see http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/?action=before70&pounds=10&shillings=&pence=&year=1667)

According to this page Milton sold the publishing rights to Paradise Lost for an initial payment of £5 and £5 for each of three impressions as they were completed. ErikD 22:34, 2004 Jul 6 (UTC)
This being the case, why does the anachronistic and just plain wrong reference to

copyright persist in this article?


--- Copyright did exist in Milton's time. Read his own Areopagitica and note this sentence in his treatment of the Licencing Order: "For that part which preserves justly every mans Copy to himselfe" - He's talking about copyright, which did exist in a primitive form at that time. Milton did indeed sell the rights to Paradise Lost for ten pounds, but whether copyright in general was taken as seriously in the 17th century as it was after 1709 is a different matter altogether.

Copyright existed as a matter of common law in England (and doubtless many other countries) long before it was codified. To assert that it did not is as ridiculous as to say there was no such thing as marriage until the office of County Clerk was established. --Haruo 22:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
"Modern" copyright began with the Statute of Anne, but it was preceeded by the so-called "Stationer's Copyright", as enforced by the printer's guild and supported by the state as part of the machinery of censorship, either the Star Chamber or its statutory successors. See for example, History of copyright law#Earliest copyright disputations, or this web site. studerby 14:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blind? How?

"His incessant labours cost him his eyesight"

Not specific enough. How did he lose his eyesight? 4.65.244.206 21:34, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Some sources say that Milton's eyes were strained by many years of reading late at night by candlelight. Being no doctor I have no idea whether this is a plausible explanation for blindness - but perhaps it should be mentioned as a possible explanation for his blindness in the article? - 14th December 2005

[edit] Diction

Some of the diction and prose in this article is out of character with Wikipedia and not particularly helpful. "Hewing to the old faith" may be a nice turn of phrase but not helpful to readers who don't know that you're trying to say he was Catholic. And "Milton père"? That's not even English! There's no need to show off, just say "Milton's father." Remember we're trying to put together a general audience encyclopedia here. Tue Apr 27 15:50:13 UTC 2004

[edit] Comments

This article seems to have been taken from an older source.

It writes: "His point of view is entirely subjective and individualistic; his faith is deduced from Scripture by the inner illumination of the Spirit"

Well, is it based on scripture, or is in entirely individualistic? And how could one know whether Milton's innards had been illuminated at the time of his writing? Moreover, it's just odd to claim such individualism for Milton, since he's part of a tradition of Puritan dissent--cf. the Levellers, etc., and the works of Christopher Hill. Milton was part of a broad puritan movement.

A general purpose article om Milton should also provide a bit more context about the times--this article assumes the reader knows about the English Civil war and its consequences, when this kind of thing should at least be touched on for those readers not up on the history of seventeenth-century England.

I suspect that the claim that Milton sold the copywright of his works is however correct. If the wiki article on copywright says that one couldn't sell or claim the right to publish things in England pre-1700, it is mistaken.

When did john milton go blind?

[edit] Source Missing

This source appeared in early versions of this page. Why is it not listed anymore?

"Text from Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion, 1911"

--SSherris 15:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Married Life

There is absolutely no "verifiable" proof that John Milton was Daniel Boone's great great grandfather. I am a Boone descendant and much as I would love to claim John Milton as another distinguished ancestor, nothing can be proved about their connection. There is no proof that Mary Milton was the daughter of John Milton. The Boone Society should be more careful about posting such spurious nonsense because there is enough confusion about the Boone ancestry as it is. If The Boone Society has proof that the Mary Milton who married John Maugridge was John Milton's daughter, then let's see that, not just some citation from their in-house newsletter.

[edit] External Links

I am skeptical about some of the external links listed. The only called "Essay on John Milton’s On Shakespear" (http://cosmoetica.com/TOP101-DES98.htm) does not seem very useful. It is a web site full of poems "rewritten" by a person who claims to be "better than Walt Whitman". Although it is amusing, it contains little original information about Milton. The other link that I object to is "Frankenstein: A New Reality", which only mentions Milton once, as an inspiration for Mary Shelley. I am going to remove these two links. I'm sure there are a lot more authoritative/pertinent sites that we could link to. Lesgles 04:20, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jr. and Sr.

I have removed the 'Jr.' from 'John Milton, Jr.', which to my (English) ear sounds rather ridiculous. I shouldn't think that anyone, British or American, would ever call him that. I have made sure not to leave any ambiguity in the rest of the article. Oliverkroll 1.20 pm, 28 October 2005

To my reading, the opening paragraph about the two John Miltons still seems to be a bit confusing and not very well written, especially when leading from father to son only. Maybe this could be improved? Gwyndon 00:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I tried to correct this. --Flex 13:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too condensed?

This article was originally based on the Schaff-Herzog entry, which was greatly redacted by an apparently non-active user Red Darwin (see the previous version). I would suggest that it is now too condensed and that some of that information should be reinserted, albeit re-edited. At the very least the footnotes that are referenced in the current text should be reinstated (or the superscripts deleted). I would do all this myself, but I also see that the content of that old version was disputed. Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter? --Flex 13:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disinherited why?

The article says Milton's father was disinherited by his devout Catholic father for concealing his Protestantism. Isn't this far more likely to be intended to read revealing his Protestantism? --Haruo 22:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This sentence is unclear and needs reworked

"The first was entitled The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, in which he attacked the English marriage law as it had been taken over almost unchanged from medieval Catholicism, sanctioning divorce on the grounds of incompatibility or childlessness only." Was John Milton advocating that divorces be restricted to these two cases from what it was previously? Or were those the only reasons reasons for divorce and therfore Milton was advocating more grounds for divorce? In either case, I'm not sure why the word "only" is there, "incompatibility" sounds just as vague as "irreconcilable differences" to me. If it meant something more specific, it needs stated. Joncnunn 15:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neologisms?

"in Paradise Lost readers were confronted by neologisms like dreary, pandæmonium, acclaim, rebuff, self-esteem, unaided, impassive, enslaved, jubilant, serried, solaced, and satanic."

Pandaemonium is certainly a neologism, but at least some of the others seem only to be the first recorded use, with an etymology that implies that they were in use before he wrote them down. Can anyone clarify? --Ruyn 13:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Novelist?

Why is Milton categorised under Category:Christian novelists? Did he write any novels? --Mais oui! 17:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of John Milton

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 16:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

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