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John Milton on Defense of the Freedom of Press
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Added on 2020-04-15
John Milton on Defense of the Freedom of Press
Added on 2020-04-15
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Running head: JOHN MILTON ON DEFENSE OF THE FREEDOM OF PRESSJohn Milton on defense of the freedom of pressName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor note
1JOHN MILTON ON DEFENSE OF THE FREEDOM OF PRESSJohn Milton was an English civil servant under the rule of Oliver Cromwell and he hadexpertise on several things (Patterson, 2014). He was a poet, a polemicist and of course a man ofletters. When he published his epic poetry Paradise Lost, the socio-political situation was at anedge due to religious flux. Milton is mostly known due to his enormous talent as a poet, but hegot engaged in several socio-political activities and out of them, he gained more popularity foradvocating for the freedom of press in that point of time (Popkin, 2015).In his prose polemic Aeropagitica, John Milton shared philosophical defenses of thebasic principle regarding the right to freedom of speech and expression (Whitten-Woodring &Van Belle, 2014). In that pamphlet Milton mentioned that the freedom of press should prevail, ‘‘Ideny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth to have avigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison,and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors’’. Milton wanted that his vision about the freedomof speech and freedom of press should be shared and that is why he made pamphlets and sharedthose to make sure that his views are distributed among the public (Patterson, 2014). Milton inhis pamphlet Milton demanded the liberty to know, argue fearlessly according to the conscience.Milton said that free expression is the fundamental and an unalterable liberty and the priority ofthat should be on the higher side. Milton always had a personal feeling of resentment against the government since thegovernment had censored many of his creative works and especially the creations about thepolitical and regarding the controversial laws of that time (Rumrich, 2015). Milton’sAeropagetica can be considered as a blunt attack on the Licensing Order Act of 1643, asaccording to this act, it was stated that an author’s creation would be first approved by thegovernment and then only it will be eligible to publish for the public. This act also demanded a
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