Areopagitica

Areopagitica: A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Printing Unlicens'd. To the parliament of England is a 1644 book authored by John Milton Tract. It is addressed to the address of the English Parliament and turns against the re-introduced by this practice of censorship in 1643 ( licensing ), which made ​​the approval of state or religious authority for the requirement of printing and publication of a book. The treatise does not argue against a subsequent censorship, ie the eventual ban of a book after publication. Milton based his writing on an ancient model of the same title by Isocrates.

Argument

Milton's central argument is the negative influence of prior censorship on the dissemination of truth. The censorship harms - as an inherited also from Protestantism means the Catholic Inquisition - by making the dissemination of truth to the office of a few people with dubious qualifications, thus suppressing a good book in the worst case, the people thereby depriving truth and thus, in Milton's words, commits a crime that is tantamount to killing a man. It also benefits anyone, because even the suppression of real errors of the truth is not at all beneficial. Because in an open confrontation, as Milton, the truth is the error ultimately always superior. He even believes that the truth will prevail only in this confrontation with the error and shows, and writes to her then, like virtue, who knows the truck and it still resists, a higher value. For these reasons, censorship is to be rejected.

Importance

Milton's treatise is considered by some authors as the locus classicus of the arguments against the censorship. AC Grayling claims in his book "Freedom, we mean " even, Milton did with his treatise and the assertion that the mass rather could find the truth than a few office-holders, sowed the seeds of British democracy. The specific intention of writing was granted a 51 -year delay, success: The English Parliament renewed in 1695 no longer the Licensing Act.

Footnotes

Swell

  • John Milton: Areopagitica. In: Literature of Renaissance England. In: The Oxford Compendium of Literature. Oxford University Press, London / New York / Toronto 1973.
  • A. C. Grayling: freedom we mean. Bertelsmann, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-570-00851-5.
  • " Censorship. " In: Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite. Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, 2010.
  • " Milton, John. " In: Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite. Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, 2010.
  • English Civil War
  • Political literature
  • Literature ( English )
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