Finding Gold in the Flowers: Rebellious Formatting As Well As Content
Milton wrote his work in the midst of the English Civil War: a time where the very foundations of English politics and religion were being brought into question, so it was only natural that his work would reflect the same revolutionary attitudes. In 1642, a group of rebels known as The Parliamentarians declared war on the English government, calling for the abolition of the English monarchy in favor of a democratic government. John Milton was one of these rebels. Milton is better known for the masterpiece, Paradise Lost: an epic which retells the story of the Original Sin from the perspective of Satan. The point of this work was not to glorify the demonic arts, but rather to show how different history can look when viewed from the perspective of the losers. Milton was certainly one to bring the status quo into question, and he does it all the same in Doctrine. Writing this short and seemingly insignificant work in 1643, a year after the beginning of the English Civil War, it is reasonable to conclude that Milton was very much influenced by his time. While there is nothing verifying what exactly inspired Milton to write on divorce specifically, the failure of his own marriage only a year prior provides a rational hypothesis as to his inspiration. When the words “divorce” and “England” are used together, most people’s minds turn to King Henry VIII, who famously broke from the Catholic Church to form the Church of England all so he could obtain a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon. Despite what that narrative may imply, divorce was not widely accepted in England, even after the Reformation. When England broke from Rome, a resolution was introduced to widen the qualifications for divorce, but it was never formally adopted. “Thus, by default, the old canon law remained, and a valid marriage continued to be indissoluble” (Couch 514). Those few who were able to obtain a divorce were hardly ever allowed to remarry. The only time where one could get remarried after getting a divorce “were when the original ‘marriage’ was not valid” (Wolfram 157), essentially saying that a marriage could never truly be dissolved unless it never existed in the first place. In Doctrine, Milton finds this tradition within the Church, perpetuated by its head, the monarch, and Parliament, to be utterly ridiculous. As the full title of the essay states: divorce is a way of righting the mistakes people make and bringing them closer to “Christian Freedom." Milton lived in a time of revolution, so he wrote a revolutionary work that questioned tradition.
In discussing the influence that Doctrine and texts like it had on English culture, it is important how the format of the text made it appealing to the public. Doctrine is a relatively short text, only being a little over 50 pages long. That may seem like a reasonably large text, but compared to some of the insanely long treatises that dominated 17th century academia, this was hardly anything. This short-text format of sharing ideas became increasingly popular in the mid-17th century with the arrival of a new literary invention: the newspaper. Henry Muddiman founded The London Gazette in 1665, creating what many consider to be the first British newspaper. Muddiman was only editor for a short time, but his style of “assembling short, discrete items out of personal letters and foreign newspapers” (King 23) would be influential on future newspapers. These collections of information, what we call “articles,” were very attractive to the common population, allowing for the information within the text to spread rapidly. Letters themselves were the foundation of this journalistic style. Letters, above all else, were methods of spreading information. This information transcended social borders, serving “as a means of connection, bridging rural and urban scenes” (King 36). Letters were a simple structure that the newly literate could easily pick up in both reading and writing. “[W]hile the best and most educated writers could flout the rules and disdain the use of formulas, for the newly or barely literate the [letter-writing] guides provided a standard to which to aspire” (King 32). The elites of society had no desire to spread new ideas to populations below their status. To inform the population would ruin the dynamic that had benefited them for so long. Letters between social groups were revolutionary, so structures similar to it were attractive to the unfortunate. Newspaper editors like Muddiman and socialites like Milton knew this, so they adopted the literary style into their own work in the hopes that their message would spread to a wider audience despite criticisms from the elite. Not only was the content of Milton’s work revolutionary in its blatant defiance of tradition, but even the simplistic style of it questioned the hierarchy and sought to bring information to an audience so often ignored in classical academia.
From the subject matter to the formatting, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce is truly a symbol of its time, so it is no wonder why archivists like Arthur Kay were so concerned with preserving the original text. On the back of the cover of the book, Kay has left a stamp with his name and a Latin phrase: Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant omnia nos itidem despascimur aurea dicta (As bees taste of everything, they offer everything which they call gold). Interpreted in the context of Kay being an archivist, this proverb could refer to how he is preserving and sharing with the world a piece of history which he believes is vitally important and worthy of regard. Looking through the pages of the text, Kay leaves few annotations, only occasionally making note of omitted passages and damages to the text. He is focused on the physical condition of the text and for good reason: Doctrine, while not the most important text in the history of English thought, is important in understanding the religious practices and social conflicts of Milton’s time.
Works Cited
Couch, Harvey. "The Evolution of Parliamentary Divorce in England." Tulane Law Review, vol. 52, 1977-1978, pp. 513-40.King, Rachel Scarborough. "Circulating News: Letters in Manuscript and Print, 1665-1695." Writing to the World: Letters and the Origins of Modern Print Genres, John Hopkins UP, 2018, pp. 23-49.
Wolfram, Sybil. "Divorce in England 1700-1857." Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 1985, pp. 155-86.
