Areopagitica

The title, which refers to both Isocrates’s address to the Council of Areopagus and the apostle Paul’s sermon at Mars’ Hill has multiple layers of meaning. First, by addressing Parliament, Milton is taking a similar stance as Isocrates. Both are singular private citizens speaking out to powerful committees. Milton is using Isocrates’s method of delivery, writing his oration as a prose tract rather than speaking it aloud. His allusion to Paul’s preaching connects to both the location of Paul’s oration—the same hill where the Council of Areopagus held court—and his references to Greek culture. Milton’s argument asserts that all literature should be uncensored, meaning that scholars should have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with texts such as Greek poetry and those that describe Greek religion, which might otherwise be considered blasphemous and censored. In Paul’s sermon, he uses his knowledge of Greek poetry and religion to preach Christianity, demonstrating the very assertion that is the crux of Milton’s Areopagitica: a strong, moral person can read even heathen texts and, rather than be corrupted, elevate those texts to a moral purpose. Similarly, Milton also demonstrates this by making classical allusions in his oration even more often than biblical ones.