Individual Post: Journal Article Summary

Source: Dowling, Paul M. "Civil Liberty and Philosophic Liberty in John Milton's Areopagitica." Interpretation 33.3 (2006): 281-294

Summary of Journal Article:

Paul M. Dowling provides a thorough analytical approach to Milton's ideas of liberty in his book, Areopagitica. Coining the phrase, “Miltonic liberty“, Dowling questions whether Milton’s ideas of freedom of speech is what it seems to be. Milton likens his proposal for certain censorship for the right of authors to express themselves freely be limited to the Athenian laws of censorship, who gave that liberty to the Esoteric, to the “Learned”.
Dowling also goes into great detail about the ambiguities behind the literal meanings of Milton’s ideas in both the English language and in Latin. Milton’s ideas of philosophic liberty rests upon the notion that the government should grant permission for writers to express themselves freely without interference from the government who’s prone to licensing “men commonly without learning and of vulgar judgment”, to decide what book needs to be censored. Dowling also mentions that although Areopagitica seems to be like any other defense for the freedom to publish without interference, Milton might have written it with a different agenda in mind. He outrightly stated that “the problems censorship addresses would be better solved by authorial and Parliamentary restraint”. He argues that Milton might have felt conflicted with the idea of censorship and the idea that, yes, some books need to be censored, but it should only be done by those from the Learned Community.

- Marjorie D.