1 - The Address to Readers: A Close Reading of Milton’s Epistle

Summary

WITH THE DECISION to publish De Doctrina, the personal and emotional drive behind the whole undertaking has become interpersonal and interactive. The Epistle seeks either to mould the desired interaction into the one Milton wants, or else to preclude ones he does not want. Milton polarizes the responses he envisages. A good reading heeds his declared intention—to share the spirit of personal search for the truth of scripture as sole authority—whereas a bad one rejects by prejudging.

In the present chapter, we follow the steps of his persuading the putative readership, to bring out his individuality and idiosyncrasy, that personal and passionate underlay of the measured gravitas. He is himself in all of this. Its autobiographical and circumstantial beginning explains this. Then latterly in the reasoning of its final paragraph we see not only the personal urgency and high seriousness of it all, but how his mind in action sways and bends the occasion to antecedent wishes. So much is at stake.

Those steps of persuasion can be seen at a glance on the pages, being the divisions into paragraphs and sentences. They are heard, with much of rhythm too, in reading aloud. I follow them through one by one, to bring out the structuring, reasoning, and some key points of the Latin. (Navigation is enabled by Milton's paragraphing, assisted when the paragraphs lengthen by the Oxford edition's giving line numbers, a beneficial anomaly for the Epistle only.) A good reading of the Epistle itself should be of his own words, by close reading; if that becomes personal and risks bias, well, he did appeal for such a reading of the whole work. Let us begin this whole study at the work's own beginning.

The Seven Paragraphs (Short Version)

These paragraphs could be compressed thus:

• i. Why am I writing yet another book on doctrine? (lines 8– 16)

• ii. Is it for selfish reasons? (17– 21)

• iii. No, God demands we have a personal faith. (22– 28)

• iv. So I worked mine out, on every point, working between scripture and other people's theologies—only, however, to be disappointed by the latter. (29– 46)

• v. So I did it all again for myself from scratch, thereby gaining a great treasure. (47– 67)