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Milton's Divorce Tracts: a Declaration of Independence

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Milton's Divorce Tracts: a Declaration of Independence MILTON'S DIVORCE TRACTS: A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE by ALASDAIR ROSS MACLENNAN BRADLEY B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1980 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 1997 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA OCTOBER 2004 © Alasdair Bradley, 2004 ii This thesis deals with an aspect of the divorce argument not previously addressed in Milton scholarship - Milton's hermeneutics, and how they change over the course of his divorce tracts. Though his hermeneutics remain fundamentally the same throughout the argument, in the final tract, Tetrachordon, certain principles come to dominate. Milton's combination, and subsequent application, of specific principles warrants particular attention, for through them he would not only justify divorce scripturally but also hypothesize a legal independence which permitted him to defy Parliament's legal authority and to act according to his own polygamous concepts of matrimony. This thesis also studies the considerable influence of John Selden on Milton's thought. Selden's work on natural and Hebraic law was pivotal in the development of Milton's own theories on law, and on marriage and divorce in particular. Such a study of Milton's hermeneutics, and of his subsequent legal theories, has implications for the reading of Paradise Lost. Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. and for the political tracts justifying regicide. The period of 1643-5 was a tumultuous one for Milton, with his disastrous marriage, with the negative reaction of both Parliament and pulpit to his arguments and, finally, with the onset of his blindness. He entered this period with the confident flush of his success with the anti- episcopal tracts but suffered continuous opposition on virtually all fronts, emerging a very changed man. This thesis examines the stages of that change through close textual analysis of the divorce tracts, and draws conclusions which bear upon the remainder of Milton's life and work. Ill 'THAT which is the only discommodity of speaking in a cleer matter, the abundance of argument that presses to bee utter'd, and the suspense of judgement what to choose, and how in the multitude of reason, to be not tedious, is the greatest difficulty which I expect heer to meet with." John Milton, Tetrachordon TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .' ii Table of Contents .... iv General Introduction : 1 CHAPTER I The Doctrine of Discipline and Divorce: The Harmony of Moses and Christ...21 1.1 Introduction 22 1.2 The Argument and the First Edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce 28 1.3 The Exegetical Principles of the First Edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce 35 1.4 Milton, his Contemporaries, and the Westminster Confession 41 1.5 Where Milton Deviates 47 1.6 The Second Edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce 55 i. Book I of the Second Edition: Setting out Moses's Law 59 ii. Book II of the Second Edition: Reconciling Christ to Moses 61 1.7 The Critics 67 1.8 Conclusions 73 1.9 Appendix: The Six Central Scriptural Passages.. 75 CHAPTER II The Judgement of Martin Bucer: The Cause of Truth 77 2.1 Introduction 78 2.2 Hermeneutics 82 i. Historical Hermeneutics: Augustine 85 ii. The Orthodoxy of Bucer's own Hermeneutics 88 2.3 The Bipolarity of Martin Bucer 103 2.4 Milton's Prophetic Sense 108 2.5 Conclusions 115 CHAPTER III Colasterion: Radical Hermeneutics as Prophetic Castigation 117 3.1 Introduction: The Place and Nature of Colasterion 118 3.2 The Relationship of Colasterion and Tetrachordon 126 3.3 Explaining the Tone of Colasterion 129 3.4 The Four Great Directors 133 i. Charity 135 ii. Reason 139 iii. Human Nature 141 iv. Good Example : 146 3.5 Other Exegetical Discussions 148 3.6 The Matter of Hebrew.. 151 3.7 The Impact of An Answer to a Book. Intituled The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, and the Implications of Colasterion 156 3.8 Conclusion 161 3.9 Appendix: An extract from Herbert Palmer's sermon to Parliament 164 CHAPTER IV Tetrachordon: A Declaration of Independence , 165 4.1 General Introduction 166 4.2 The Structure of Tetrachordon 171 i. The Preface 171 ii. Genesis 1: 27-8 and 2: 18, 23-4 , 178 iii. Deuteronomy 24: 1-2 186 iv. Matthew 5: 31-2 and 19: 3-11 190 v. I Corinthians 7: 10-16 198 vi. Milton's Authorities and his Concluding Remarks 202 4.3 The Hermeneutics 203 4.4 The Necessity to Treat of Law 206 4.5. JohnSelden 208 4.6 Grotius, Selden, and Natural Law Theory 220 4.7 Milton's Mental State 231 CONCLUSIONS 234 Bibliography 260 1 INTRODUCTION The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the color of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet. (Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry) 2 Richard Helgerson opens the introduction to his study Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser. Jonson. Milton, and the Literary System with a quotation from Thomas Mann: I take it for a rule, that the greatest works were those of the most modest purpose. Ambition may not stand at the beginning; it must not come before the work but must grow with the work, which will itself be greater than the blithely astonished artist dreamed; it must be bound up with the work and not with the ego of the artist. There is nothing falser than abstract and premature ambition, the self- centered pride independent of the work, the pallid ambition of ego.1 Helgerson then goes on to deny such gradual ambition to each of his three subjects. All, says Helgerson, fostered the ambition for greatness from the beginning, from their youth. This may have been the case with Spenser and Jonson, but they are the business of others. With respect to Milton, Helgerson is wrong. Certainly Milton hoped, at one time, to write of great things, of "kings and queens and heroes old" as "wise Demodocus" had done at the feast of Alcinous,2 but, as Milton's own interests developed and matured, and as unforeseen misfortunes intervened, these intentions changed. He became less concerned with the grand sweep of human history and of conventional heroic figures as subjects for his great poem, and more critically concerned with the pressing argument for individual liberty as a product of, and necessary to, each individual's relationship with God. Earlier aspirations, "'prematurely' announced" (as Helgerson puts it), were derailed by a number of setbacks, all of which interrupted Milton's life shortly after his marriage to Mary Powell in July of 1642. The desperation arising from these circumstances was sufficient to distract Milton completely, to put from his mind any thoughts of self-promotion, any "ambition 1 Thomas Mann, "Voyage with Don Quixote," in Essays of Three Decades, trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (New York: Knopf, 1947), p. 460. As quoted in Richard Helgerson, Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser. Jonson. and Milton, and the Literary System (Berkeley: U of California P, 1983) 1-2. (Hereafter referred to as "Helgerson".) 2 "At a Vacation Exercise," II. 47-9. (1628) 3 not only to write great poems but also to fill the role of the great poet."3 His reaction to these setbacks (one of which was the first dimming of his eyesight) was to fight back, and this involved a battle to instigate changes in his life, such as divorce, which would rectify his situation, despite the proscriptions of civil and ecclesiastical law. Milton's battle for liberty was a reaction to what he considered attempts to oppress him personally. He feared the loss of his ability to worship as his conscience led him, and so he engaged in the anti-episcopal controversy; he feared the galling prison of a miserable and separated marriage, which inspired his divorce tracts; he feared civic impotence as the subject of oppressive statecraft, and wrote in support of regicide. His eventual goal, though it was only during the trials of the divorce controversy that he realized this, was to guide his fellow Englishmen out of the traps of tradition and error, and toward a better state, holy before God, and characterized by spiritual, domestic, and civic harmony. The eventual result of these "wars" was Paradise Lost, a poem designed as much to justify the ways of men to men as "to justify the ways of God to men." Another product of these wars (and more important, for Milton, at least), in the course of whose evolution the campaign for divorce is crucial, was his self-identification as a prophet, though not as a fantastical visionary, such as John of Patmos, who speaks in grand and apocalyptic riddles and images. Milton saw himself instead as God's pedagogue, chosen and trained up to remind mankind of what had already been revealed but, through error or evil, had been forgotten or ignored. The first and most important battle in this long war was for personal liberty.
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