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Books are repeatedly mentioned by Milton in Areopagitica and they carry a twofold significance within his speech. First, books are symbolic of knowledge and learning and the pursuit of truth; however, the suppression of books through censorship is also symbolic of oppression and governmental tyranny and overreach. Milton frequently references ancient Greece and Rome as model societies of wise, educated men, and one of the primary sources of this wisdom and knowledge, Milton asserts, is their tolerance for books and competing ideas. All books and “all opinions, yea, errors, known, read and collated” are useful in “the speedy attainment of what is truest,” Milton argues. He further asserts that the continued censorship of books by Parliament’s Licensing Order will be to the detriment of learning and the pursuit of truth, not only because it limits access to what “we know already,” but because it limits “the discovery that might be yet further made both in religious and civil wisdom.” Books, then, are a tangible representation of the wealth of ideas and potential for truth-seeking that Milton believes are unique to the written word, as well as the danger of those ideas being regulated and censored by the government.
Books Quotes in Areopagitica
The Areopagitica quotes below all refer to the symbol of Books. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Areopagitica
Quotes
By judging over again that order which ye have ordained to regulate printing: ‘That no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed, unless the same be first approved and licensed by such’, or at least one of such as shall be thereto appointed. For that part which preserves justly every man’s copy to himself, or provides for the poor, I touch not, only wish they be not made pretences to abuse and persecute honest and painful men, who offend not in either of these particulars. But that other clause of licensing books, which we thought had died with his brother ‘quadragesimal’ and ‘matrimonial’ when the prelates expired, I shall now attend with such a homily, as shall lay before ye, first the inventors of it to be those whom ye will be loath to own; […].
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Get LitCharts A+And yet on the other hand unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
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Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes the loosest of them all, to his royal scholar Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused, if holy Chrysostom as is reported nightly studied so much the same author, and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon. That other leading city of Greece, Lacedaemon, considering that Lycurgus their lawgiver was so addicted to elegant learning as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wondered how museless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war.
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We have it not, that can be heard of, from any ancient state, or polity, or church, nor by any statute left us by our ancestors elder or later; nor from the modern custom of any reformed city or church abroad; but from the most antichristian council, and the most tyrannous inquisition that ever enquired. Till then books were ever as freely admitted into the world as any other birth: the issue of the brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb: no envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of any man’s intellectual offspring; but if it proved a monster, who denies, but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the sea
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Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came not thither so: such great care and wisdom is required to the right managing of this point. Suppose we could expel sin by this means; look how much we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue: for the matter of them both is the same; remove that, and ye remove them both alike. This justifies the high providence of God, who though he command us temperance, justice, continence, yet pours out before us even to a profuseness all desirable things, and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety. Why should we then affect a rigour contrary to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which books freely permitted are, both to the trial of virtue, and the exercise of truth.
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And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the general murmur is; that if it come to inquisitioning again, and licensing, and that we are so timorous of ourselves, and so suspicious of all men, as to fear each book, and the shaking of every leaf, before we know what the contents are, if some who but of late were little better than silenced from preaching, shall come now to silence us from reading, except what they please, it cannot be guessed what is intended by some but a second tyranny over learning: and will soon put it out of controversy that bishops and presbyters are the same to us both name and thing.
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Books Symbol Timeline in Areopagitica
The timeline below shows where the symbol Books appears in Areopagitica. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Areopagitica
According to Milton, Parliament’s Licensing Order of 1643 mandates “that no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed, unless the same be first approved and licensed...
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...Roman Catholic Church—and the order does “nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed.” Milton asserts that the pre-publication licensing of books...
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Milton does not deny that it is important to keep a “vigilant eye on how books demean themselves as well as men,” for books can be “malefactors” as well. “Books are...
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...even “some of our presbyters,” Milton writes. In Athens, Greece, “the magistrate” cared only about books that were “either blasphemous and atheistical, or libellous.” For example, the books of Protagoras were...
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...the Spartan surliness” and “plant among them law and civility.” There was “no licensing of books among them,” Milton says. “Thus much may give us light after what sort of books...
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...scenes of Menander” and Naevius “was quickly cast into prison for his unbridled pen.” Libelous books “were burnt” in Rome, “and the makers punished by Augustus.” Books that “were impiously written...
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...many an old good author.” The Roman Catholic Church was not only concerned with heretical books, but any book that did not suit their tastes. No books could then be published...
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...most antichristian council, and the most tyrannous inquisition that ever enquired.” Up to that point, books were “freely admitted into the world as any other birth.” There was not an “envious...
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...learning,” and he wanted to guard himself “against heretics” by being well versed in their books. He had a “vision” of God that told him the following: “Read any books whatever...
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...meats” to a spoiled stomach are no different than “unwholesome meats,” Milton says, and “best books to a naughty mind” are not useless either. “Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment,”...
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...of human virtue,” Milton argues, and “this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.”
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It is often feared what “infection” might “spread” from bad books, but what of the Bible, Milton asks. The Bible “oft times relates blasphemy not nicely,”...
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...be taught our youth but what by [Parliament’s] allowance shall be thought honest.” What of books already written and for sale, Milton asks? “Who shall prohibit them?” And “household gluttony”; who...
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...thing we hear or see, sitting, walking, travelling, or conversing may be fitly called our book,” Milton maintains. As Parliament wishes only to prohibit books, Milton argues, “it appears that this...
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...every licenser.” Anyone “who is made judge to sit upon the birth or death of books” must be “a man above common measure,” Milton says. They must be “studious, learned and...
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...licenser can be “mistaken in an author.” And, as Sir Francis Bacon said, “such authorized books are but the language of the times.” It is regrettable, Milton claims, that any author,...
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...all, Milton says, “debtors and delinquents” are free to roam “without a keeper but inoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailor in their title.”
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...are so fearful “and so suspicious of all men,” Milton says, that we “fear each book” before knowing what’s inside, and the state can “silence us from reading, except what they...
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