
Before censorship was a hot-button issue, Milton's "Areopagitica" (1644) boldly defied Parliament's publishing restrictions. This revolutionary pamphlet - cited alongside Mill's "On Liberty" - established the intellectual foundation for free speech that would later inspire Blake, Wordsworth, and modern democratic principles.
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What drives someone to risk everything for a principle? In 1644, John Milton-a devout Puritan scholar who had spent years supporting Parliament against the monarchy-did something shocking: he turned against his own allies. Parliament had just passed a law requiring all books to receive government approval before publication, ostensibly to fight royalist propaganda. But when Milton published controversial views on divorce and found himself targeted by this very law, he experienced censorship firsthand. His response wasn't quiet compliance but a soaring defense of intellectual freedom that would echo through centuries. "Areopagitica," named after the ancient Athenian court where citizens debated freely, became more than a protest against book licensing-it became a revolutionary vision of how truth itself emerges. Milton's path to radicalism began in privilege. Born in 1608 to a wealthy London scrivener, he received the finest education money could buy-private tutors, St. Paul's School, and Cambridge. But instead of pursuing the expected clerical career, Milton made a bold choice: dedicating himself entirely to scholarship and poetry. For six years, he lived in his father's country home, reading voraciously and writing works like "Comus" that showcased his extraordinary gifts. His Continental tour brought encounters that shaped his thinking profoundly-particularly meeting the elderly, blind Galileo, imprisoned for his scientific views. This meeting would haunt Milton when he later lost his own sight, becoming a living symbol of how authority crushes inquiry. Yet Milton's life took an unexpected turn in 1643. He returned from a journey with a seventeen-year-old bride, Mary Powell, who fled back to her family within weeks. The rejection devastated him, prompting Milton to write "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce"-arguing that incompatibility justified ending marriage. The backlash was fierce. Clergy denounced him from pulpits. The Stationers' Company complained he'd violated licensing laws. Suddenly, this establishment intellectual found himself censored by his own political allies. This personal crisis became the crucible for "Areopagitica." Milton understood censorship not as abstraction but as lived experience-the silencing of ideas that challenged orthodoxy, even when those ideas deserved hearing.
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