Incisive in his writings and controversial in his time, John Milton, through his prolific publications, provides his readers with a moral framework that extends from the soul to the political. Given this understanding, you can use Milton and his works to nuance your conception of the human condition and the governmental forces that enable or disable it. This last idea, that a government can limit the activities of its citizens, is current and is seriously questioned by Milton. Politically outspoken, Milton fought for the concept of freedom, believing that freedom of choice and voice are integral to the human experience. Thus, when the British Parliament promulgated the Licensing Order of 1643 - under which authors must submit their works for approval before publication - Milton began writing, publishing Areopagitica, a dynamic work of prose that argued against restriction of freedom. (Kerrigan 923). Authorized by his order, the government could monitor all books, ultimately empowered to arbitrate and control the flow of knowledge. In this work, Milton implores Parliament to revoke its law and thus restore the rights of the British people, calling for “liberty to know, to speak, and to argue freely according to conscience…” (960). While the work's most obvious purpose is to grant freedom of publication to all authors, regardless of the content of their work, the essence of its argument extends beyond books: freedom is freedom of choice. The books, and the restrictive laws surrounding their distribution, seem to serve only as a microcosm for this larger argument, for “they are not absolutely dead things, but contain within themselves such a power of life as to be as active as that soul was whose soul was offspring are...” (930). Milton's reader, in light of this definition, must treat books as equal to human beings, understanding that to limit the book is to limit the individual. Keeping this in mind, one can apply it to other works of Milton, namely Comus: A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, in which the protagonist, Lady Alice, must face vice and choose virtue instead. In her self-temperance, Alice proves herself to be Milton's “warrior Christian,” ultimately reflecting the foundations of Miltonic freedom. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Before unraveling Milton's ideas of virtue, it is necessary to first understand his ideas about the existence of good and evil. Himself a religious man, Milton believed in the existence of both, even going so far as to say that the two "grow together almost inseparably" (938). Such a realistic perspective differentiates Milton from his political opponents, whose regulation of literature presupposes the expulsion of evil from society. By asserting the codependency of good and evil, Milton forces the individual to actively choose between the two, aligning himself with one, but not both. Outside of their intrinsic connection, Milton believes that the two forces have a practical application, each being a lens through which to identify the other: it was from the peel of an apple that the knowledge of good and evil was tasted as two twins coming together. together they leapt into the world. And perhaps this is precisely the condemnation into which Adam fell, that of knowing good and evil, that is, of knowing good through evil. (939) To support his thesis that evil is essential to the knowledge of good, Milton traces it back to its biblical roots, in particular to the Book of Genesis, inwhere Eve, tempted by Satan, eats the forbidden apple and in doing so releases evil. in the world, finally causing original sin. Of course, the purpose of his allusion is to clarify the birth of evil, to demonstrate that, throughout human history, good and evil have existed simultaneously. Literal implications aside, Milton hopes his readers will understand that, without an evil to balance it all, goodness is nothing more than an amorphous word with no moral consequences. To be truly good requires active abstinence from evil, the eradication of which would completely undermine the value of good. By limiting some books, Parliament deprives individuals of their freedom, of their choice, thus preventing any true realization of the good in them. So, to oppose such deprivation of liberty, to right the wrongs of Parliament, and to free liberty from its shackles, Milton wrote Areopagitica. Having contemplated Milton's freedom, demonstrating that it is the freedom of choice, one should understand virtue as the driving force behind that choice. Now, harmoniously combining freedom and virtue in a hypothetical individual, Milton articulates to his reader the notion of a “true warrior Christian,” who can “apprehend and regard vice with all its seeming lures and pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer what is truly better…” (939). By assigning a feminine pronoun to vice, Milton personifies it, prescribing a seductive human form with which to tempt the individual; now incarnate, she wanders the earth, seeking to spread her seed and infect those who are virtuous. Such personification, it should be noted, is almost misogynistic, as it immediately associates the female form with moral corruption. However, to embody Milton's "warrior Christian", one must interact with vice and repudiate it; after all, you can't truly succeed if you don't have the opportunity to fail. Perhaps hampered by his political motivations, Milton does not fully explore this Christian figure in his parliamentary invocation; however, it is possible to locate it in another work by Milton, performed a decade before Areopagitica. Commissioned by Early of Bridgewater, Comus features his children: Lady Alice, his 15-year-old daughter, and her two little brothers, one aged 11 and the other nine. (Kerrigan, 61-62). To antagonize these children - located alone together in a forest - Milton chooses Comus, traditionally associated with the Greek god whose presence brings anarchy and chaos, but here a cunning sorcerer whose "many lures and cunning incantations /... enchant and invite ' indecisive sense / Of those who pass inexorably along the road” (Milton, 82). An agent of corruption, Comus deceives and takes advantage of innocent passers-by, hoping to corrupt their virtue with the temptations of vice. More than corrupt, he seems to be the physical manifestation of vice, entering the scene with “a magic wand in one hand, the glass in the other, with him a multitude of monsters directed as different types of”. wild beasts…” (Milton, 67). Here conceived as calm and easygoing, he leads his followers, all of whom have once passed, “unhappy among other things,” only to be infected and degraded by witchcraft. Yet, for the purposes of the masque, Comus targets Lady Alice, the young virgin whose chastity foils his depravity. Interestingly, when informed by Areopagitica, one understands Comus' evil as the source of his fascination with Alice. Good and evil, as previously established, are intrinsically connected, a connection that allows Comus to "feel the different rhythm of a chaste step" (69). Embodying evil, Comus has the power to perceive the presence of good, manifested here in the virgin Lady. Thus, enraptured by the purity of the Lady, Comus sets off towards.