Conditions of Revolution: Sic Sometimes Tyrannis

The Stanford University Library has a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost signed by both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. It is unclear why the book passed between these two founding fathers, or why James Madison signed it five times. (Could he have been testing his pen?) But there is something compelling about the existence of such a clear connection between two renowned Americans and one renowned literary work. 

At least since the early 1700s, when Addison’s new periodical The Spectator published a series of 19 essays designed to aid subscribers in their own reading of Paradise Lost, the epic had become something of a symbol of cultural capital. Frequent reprints of the poem, particularly after English copyright law changed in 1731, served to make Milton’s easier to own, and more accessible to read. Paradise Lost was an elite cultural production, but one that was increasingly available to the everyman in the form of inexpensive reprints. Add in Benjamin Franklin’s invention of circulating libraries and nearly anyone who was interested could get a copy of Milton’s great work, and the Spectator and others could help them understand it.

In other words, what we now think of as one of the highlights of high culture, was, for the 18th century, equalizing. The ferocious Milton, who wrote, “No man who knows ought, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were borne free, being the image and resemblance of God himself, and were by privilege above all the creatures, born to command and not to obey” might have approved. 

Certainly, he argued in Aeropagitica, that active reading, discussing, and publishing was a good sign for a society: “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.” Indeed, such work is the keystone of liberty and the antidote to tyranny. “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

 As Spencer Klavan’s lead essay reminds us this month, Milton’s influence on the founders–in politics, theology, and literary style, and in the tense moments as they debated revolution–was substantial and complex. We hope you enjoy tracing those connections with him.