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Milton's Prose Vocabulary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Joshua H. Neumann
Joshua H. Neumann*
Affiliation:
Brooklyn College
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Extract

In the history of the English language in the seventeenth century Milton occupies an anomalous position. In his general outlook on the character and problems of the language and in his efforts for linguistic regularity he suggests the rationalizing and standardizing tendencies of the eighteenth century. But in his actual practice in the matters of vocabulary, sentence structure, and syntax, he displays a versatility and extravagance which is characteristically Elizabethan. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate one of these aspects of Milton's English, namely, the chief features of his prose vocabulary, especially as illustrated in his own lexical innovations, and to draw certain conclusions from them in regard to his position as a great enricher of the English language.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 60 , Issue 1: Number 1 Part 1 , March 1945 , pp. 102 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945

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References

1 The literature on Milton's style and diction is extensive, but comparatively little of it deals with his prose vocabulary. Of the various editions of his individual works the following are informative on matters of language: John W. Hales, ed., Areopagitica (Oxford, 1874); Evert Mordecai Clark, ed., The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (New Haven, 1895); Will Taliafero Hale, ed., Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in England (New Haven, 1896); William Talbot Allison, ed., The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (New York, 1911). The last three are in the Yale Studies in English series. Ants Oras, Notes on Some Miltonic Usages (Tartu, 1938), Milton's Editors and Commentators (Tartu, 1930), and Helen Louisa Drew, “The Diction of Milton's Prose,” Cornell University Abstracts of Theses, 1938 (Ithaca, 1939), pp. 29–32, contain valuable material on certain features of Milton's prose. The standard text of Milton, both prose and poetry, is, of course, the Columbia edition, Frank Allen Patterson et al., ed., The Works of John Milton (New York, 1931–38), Vol. i–xviii. All references to Milton's works in this paper are to this edition.

2 Of Education, Works, iv, 277.

3 xii, 31 ff. The original letter is in Latin. The quotations are from David Masson's translation.

4 History of Britain (1670), x, 73.

5 Ibid., x, 292.

6 Proposals of Certain Expedients (1659?), xviii, 4. One notices in these passages the juxtaposition of “language” with “fashions” or “morals.” Cf. also Of Reformation (1641), iii, 51, where the “similitude of language and manners” of the United Provinces with those of England is urged as a reason for closer sympathy.

7 xi, 221.

8 Reason of Church Government (1641), iii, 240. Cf. also Herman M. Flasdieck, Der Gedanke einer englischen Sprachakademie in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Jena, 1928), p. 12.

9 A late account records a tradition to the effect that Milton was actually a member of the Delia Crusca academy, and that he was consulted by its members on difficult and controversial points. See Jonathan Richardson, Explanatory Notes on Milton's Paradise Lost (London, 1734), p. xiii.

10 H. J. C. Grierson, ed., The Poems of John Milton (London, 1915), i, xxviii.

11 Helen Darbishire, The Manuscript of Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I (Oxford, 1931), pp. xv. ff.

12 This point is of special importance in poetry because Milton apparently depended upon spelling to insure a correct reading of his verse. Thus, as Miss Darbishire points out, Milton spells heavn, blest, when he wishes these words to be pronounced as monosyllables, but heaven, blessed, when they are to be pronounced as disyllables.

13 Miss Darbishire suggests that there was a gradual progression in Milton's scheme of simplifying English spelling. If that is the case, the differentiation between he and hee seems to have been one of the first, for it occurs in his early pamphlets.

14 Helen Louisa Drew, op. cit., p. 30. The eight tracts used in making the count were Of Reformation, Prelaticall Episcopacy, Church Government, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Areopagitica, Of Education, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, and The Readie and Easie Way, a total of two-sevenths, approximately, of Milton's English prose. Both Miss Drew's count and Bradshaw's exclude inflected forms and proper names. See also Otto Jespersen, Growth and Structure of the English Language, 6th edition (Leipzig, 1930), p. 197, and Arthur G. Kennedy, Current English (New York, 1935), p. 421.

15 Church Government, iii, 236; The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, iv, 379.

16 Of Education, iv, 285. Cf. also xii, 31–39, and m, 236.

17 William Godwin, The Lives of Edward and John Philips (London, 1815), p. 312. Though Phillips' explanation is rejected by Masson and others, the prejudice it exhibits is quite authentic.

18 Commonplace Book, xviii, 166; The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649), v, 3. Slighting references to the French language and French manners occur also in Of Education iv, 290; An Apology, iii, 300. Cf. also Proposalls of Certain Expedients, loc. cit., and the History of Britain, x, 292.

19 Sir Walter Raleigh, Milton (London, 1900), p. 75,

20 An exception is Milton's reference to the word alloeostropha, which Milton coined to designate a type of verse used in the chorus of a Greek play. Cf. Preface to Samson Agonistes. “being divided into Stanza's they [these verses] may be call'd Alloeostropha.”

21 Church Government, iii, 236.

22 Occasionally Milton explains the meaning of a new or difficult word, whether of his own mintage or not, by pairing it with an older or better-known equivalent. Thus, “antinomy, or counter-statute” (The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, iii, 440), “oligarchy, or the faction of a few” (Letter to a Friend, vi, 105). More frequently, however, this device is employed for some other reason than that of explanation: “to deferr and put off” (Of Reformation, iii, 68), “be darken'd and obscur'd” (Ibid., 278), “to cancel and crosse it out” (Church Government, iii, 248), “continual cohabitation and living together” (The Judgment of Martin Bucer, iv, 46), “stagery, or scene-worke” (An Apology against a Pamphlet, iii, 293).

23 The distinction is practical rather than ideal. Many words technically foreign were no longer felt to be such in Milton's day, Cf. Edward Phillips, The New World of Words (London, 1658), Preface: “Of these Latin words there are many … that by long custome are so ingrafted and naturaliz'd into our tongue that now they are become free denizons … without any difference or distinction between them and Native words, and are familiarly understood by the common sort and the most unlearned of the people.”

24 Elizabeth Holmes, “Some Notes on Milton's Use of Words,” Essays and Studies of the English Association (Oxford, 1924), x, 97 ff.

25 Church Government, iii, 256.

26 Apology against a Pamphlet, iii, 352.

27 Eikonoklastes, v, 112.

28 Tetrachordon (1645), iv, 168.

29 Of Reformation, iii.

30 Eikonoklastes, v, 280.

31 Areopagitica, iv, 322.

32 Of Prelatical Episcopacy, iii, 89. Cf. Karl Pfeffer, Das Elisabethanische Sprichwort in seiner Verwendung bei Ben Jonson (Giessen, 1933).

33 The Spectator (1712), 285.

34 Areopagitica, iv, 304.

35 Of Civil Power, vi, 10–11. The words under discussion are blasphemy and heretic. See also An Apology against a Pamphlet, iii, 287.

36 Cf. his comment on Tetrachordon in Sonnet xi.

37 iii, 203.

38 v, 112.

39 ix, 23. In Defensio Secunda, vii, 47, the same word is condemned as coming from Tertullian. The earliest occurrence of the English word deicide, according to NED, is 1611.

40 For the following words the NED gives a later citation though they occur in Milton: despotic (NED, 1650; Milton, Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, 1649), conglobed (NED, 1822; Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667), fellow-sufferers (NED, 1867; Milton, Apology against a Pamphlet, 1664), Petrarchian (NED, 1801; Milton, Letter to a Friend, 1632). On the other hand, the following words recorded in the NED as appearing first in Milton were found upon examination of the files of the Early Modern English Dictionary to occur in earlier authors.

First Citation in NED Earlier Occurrence
antinomian, adj., Colasterion, 1645.1644. Prynne, Twelve Considerable Serious Questions. “The dangerous increase of … antinomian … opinions.”
attack, noun, Paradise Lost, 1667.1656. Blount, Glossographia. “Sometimes the same word is used both substantively and adjectively, as … attacque….”
cedarn, adj., Comus, 1634.1565. Cooper, Thesaurus. “Cedria. The roseyn running out of the cedren tree.”
drear, adj., Paradise Lost, 1667.1590. Spenser, Faerie Queene. “Others like Gryphons dreare.”
endangerment, noun, Tetrachordon, 1645.1590. Spenser, Faerie Queene. “Which way he enter might, without endangerment.”
loquacious, adj., Paradise Lost, 1667.1663. W. Clark, Marciano. “I did labour to coerce in him that loquacious verbosity.”

41 Of Reformation, iii, 14.

42 Eikonoklastes, v, 162.

43 The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings, vi, 48.

44 Animadversions against a Pamphlet, iii, 131. Cf. also, Church Government, iii, 244 on prelaty and prelateity.

45 NED, s. v. sensuous.

46 In his prose Milton uses the adjectives adamantine several times, never adamantean. The following words in -ean, -ian, which occur in Milton's prose, are not recorded in the NED: Melchisedecian, Ovidian, Pigmean.

47 Other words of this kind occurring in Milton's prose, but not of his making are amatorious, assassinous, criminous, melancholious, matrimonious.

48 Edward Phillips, op. cit., Preface. The objection to -ize was based first on the ground that it was used too frequently and without discrimination, and secondly, that it was used unetymologically with Latin and Romance, instead of Greek, nouns. Other -ize forms occurring in Milton are canonize, catechize, christianize, disexercize, epitomize, evangelize, gentilize, gourmandize, idolize, idolatrize, Latinize, monarchize, monopolize, paganize, particularize, politize, royalize, secularize, solemnize, Spaniolize, stigmatize, subtilize, and tyrannize. These words are not, however, Miltonic coinages.

49 Other -ist words in Milton are: glossist, quaerist, Sorbonist, talmudist, textuist.

50 Other words in -ism occurring in Milton are gentilism, heathenism, idolism, monachism, paganism, precisianism. These are not Miltonic words.

51 The suffix -ment is very common in Milton's prose. In the single tract Church Government there are some forty-odd words in -ment, among them the following: admonishment, concernment, denouncement, deducement, preachment, reducement, supportment.

52 Other words in -ery, -ry, but not of Milton's invention, occurring in his prose are balladry, duncery, enginry, pedlery, psalmistry, pulpitry, spinstery.

53 A Readie and Easie Way, vi, 138.

54 Tetrachordon, iv, 84.

55 The word imparadize, which Addison found so highly poetic in Paradise Lost and which he regarded as a genuine Miltonic creation, was shown by Richard Bentley to have been used by Sir Phillip Sidney in Arcadia. See Ants Oras, Milton's Editors and Commentators, p. 50, ff.

56 William R. Parker, Milton's Contemporary Reputation (Columbus, 1940), p. 115.

57 Apology against a Pamphlet, iii, 311.

58 See Hales' note on “scurrill Plautus” in his edition of Areopagitica, p. 92.

59 Cf. Thomas Blount, Glossographia (1656), To the Reader. “So likewise there is a liberty in most adjectives whether you will say optique (after the French), optick, opticous, or optical.” In the preceding paragraph Blount indicates that adjectives frequently have the same form as nouns.

60 iii, 110–111. For a full account of the controversy, cf. David Masson, The Life of John Milton (London, 1859–94), i, 259.

61 “And tho the learned enfranchiser [of foreign words] maie somtime yeild much to the forg, either for shew of learning, or by persuasion, that it is best so, yet he doth not well, considering that the verie natur of enfranchisment doth enforce obedience to the enfranchisers lawes, not to be measured by his bare person, but by custom, reason 6* sound, of his countries speche … Wherefor I think it best for the strange words to yeild to our lawes, bycause we are both their vsuaries & fructuaries, both to enioy their frutes, and to vse themselues, and that as near as we can, we make them mere English, as Iustiniā did make the incorporate people, mere Romanes, and banished the terms, of both latins & yeildings.” E. T. Campagnac, ed., Mulcaster's Elementarie, 1582 (Oxford, 1925), p. 174. The only Romance language to play an appreciable part in Milton's vocabulary is Italian. Milton rarely makes use of recent French words, and of Spanish only somewhat less infrequently. But Italian words and even phrases do occur in his prose. The only words of that language, however, which appear for the first time in Milton, according to the NED, are allegro, internuncio, libeccio, monsignor, penseroso.

62 E. M. Clark, ed., The Readie and Easie Way, p. xlvii.

63 Helen Louisa Drew, op. cit., p. 31.

64 Out of 1900 words counted by the present writer in the first five letters of the alphabet in Bradshaw's Concordance (omitting names and inflected forms), about 90 were found to be compounds, approximately one in twenty or twenty-one.

65 Of Reformation, iii, 19.

66 Tetrachordon, iv, 175.

67 Of Reformation, iii, 18. The awkwardness of Puritan coinages was the subject of ridicule by Samuel Butler and other anti-Puritan writers. Cf. Hudibras, i, i, 109.

Cou'd coin or counterfeit
New Words with little or no Wit.

Cf. also Addison's reference to the “jargon of enthusiasm” which came in with the Great Rebellion, Spectator, 458, and Swift's use of the same phrase.

68 Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, v, 45.

69 Church Government, iii, 242.

70 Areopagitica, iv, 325.

71 Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, v, 20. So also “the pulling down [= deposing] of tyrants,” ibid., v, 56. The first recorded use of this compound in the NED is a passage from Macaulay (1828).

72 Of Reformation, iii, 19.

73 Tetrachordon, iv, 162.

74 History of Britain, x, 323. So also “unconverted, unrepentant, unsensible” (Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, v, 38). Cf. also Church Government, iii, 238; Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, iii, 464; Tetrachordon, iv, 65, 204.

75 For the poetry cf. Paradise Lost, ii, 185; iii, 23; v, 898; Paradise Regained, iii, 429. See also supra on the prefix dis-. So also, “did not only foresee, but foretell and forewarne us” (Church Government, iii, 210). What is essentially the same device appears also in “a right pious, right honest, right hardy nation” (Church Government, iii, 225); how good, how gainfull, how happy it needs must be“ (Ibid., iii, 182); ”more warily, more judiciously, more orthodox- ally“ (Of Civil Power, vi, 11). The suffixes -est, -tion, and -ing are used in much the same way: ”softest, basest, virtuousest, servilest, easiest“ (Readie and Easie Way, vi, 145); ”nothing but ambition, corruption, contention, combustion“ (Apology against a Pamphlet, iii, 357); ”this is maintaining, this is warranting, this protecting“ (Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, iii, 439).

76 In the single tract The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce Milton uses the following compounds with over-: overcharg'd, overcome, overcurious, overdaled, overfrolic (noun), over-front (verb), overhard, overlong, overmaster'd, overmuch, overshot, overnarrow'd, over strong, oversway'd, overtempted, overthrow, overtost, overweening, overwhelming. The NED attributes the following over-compounds to Milton: overawful, overstudy, overarch, overply, overripe. (The first two are from the prose.)

77 “To globe itself up” (Church Government, iii, 260); “would martyr and saint him” (Eikonoklastes, v, 68); “be padlock'd on the neck of any Christian” (Colasterion, iv, 244); “a man thus wedlock't” (Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, iii, 475).

78 Thus, Milton's use of the word alien as a verb (“nor can that case be alien'd from him,” Animadversions, iii, 122), is not an illustration of a Miltonic functional shift, for the verb to alien occurs as early as 1374. To alienate appears first about 1500.

Hales' note on to jealous as a verb (“if we jealous over them,” Areopagitica, ed., Hales, p. 121) is an error due to a faulty reading of the text. The passage actually reads: “if we be jealous …” See the Columbia edition, iv, 238.

79 Aeropagitica, iv, 320.

80 Of Reformation, iii, 40.

81 Tetrachordon, iv, 109.

82 Ibid., iv, 143.

83 Church Government, iii, 264.

84 iii, 323.

85 Readie and Easie Way, vi, 139.

86 Of Reformation, iii, 71.

87 Animadversions, iii, 174.

88 Colasterion, iv, 238.

89 Animadversions, iii, 132.

90 Means to Remove Hirelings, vi, 69.

91 Readie and Easie Way, vi, 139.

92 Johnson (1755) labels prog “a low word” and thwack “ridiculous.” One illustration which he gives for cog, cogging illustrates its use in gambler's slang. Cog, lurch, and prog are described by Barrère and Leland, Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant (London, 1897), as “old cant” terms. The word preaching-tub is listed in Partridge's Dictionary as a seventeenth century slang word.

93 Colasterion, iv, 236. Mention should also be made of Milton's fondness for puns and verbal quibbles, examples of which occur both in his poetry and prose. Cf. for example, his pun on type and typet in Church Government, iii, 202 (“here we have the type of a king sow'd to the typet of a Bishop”), and on Moses and unmosaick in The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, iii, 458. His controversial works in Latin abound in puns, Cf. his pun on Sorbonne and absorbendum in Defensio Prima, vii, 203, and his endless punning on Morus and Pontia. Milton was too much of an Elizabethan to frown upon this species of “false wit.”

94 Francis Peck, New Memoirs of the Life and Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton (London, 1740), p. 107. The word to heave in the sense of “to elevate (a person) in dignity,” which occurs in the sentence “the Bishop was heav'd above the Presbyter” (Church Government, iii, 210), is the last recorded use of the word in this sense.

95 Animadversions, iii, 154.

96 Observations, vi, 260.

97 Tetrachordon, iv, 177.

98 By way of contrast cf. Samuel Butler's characterization of “An Hypocritical Nonconformist” as one who “uses the old Phrases of the English Translation of the Bible from the Jewish Idiom, as if they contained in them more Sanctity and Holiness than other Words.” Characteristics, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge, 1906), p. 23.