{"id":1871,"date":"2014-09-11T13:39:09","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T18:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nonsolusblog.wordpress.com\/?p=1871"},"modified":"2014-09-11T13:39:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T18:39:09","slug":"freedom-of-speech-for-me-but-not-for-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/2014\/09\/11\/freedom-of-speech-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Speech for Me….but not for Thee"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Milton (1608-1674). Areopagitica, A speech of Mr. John Milton for the\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>liberty of vnlicenc’d printing to the Parliament of England<\/em>. London: [s.n.], 1644.\u00a0<\/strong>Shelfmark: 821 M64 N6.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"III.14_TP\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With manuscript warrant issued to John Milton on 25 June 1650. Shelfmark:\u00a0<\/strong>Pre-1650 MS 0168<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Milton_warrant\"<\/a><\/p>\n

John Milton, arguably the most significant English poet of the seventeenth\u00a0century, was also a republican politician, religious renegade, and a vocal\u00a0polemicist on the issues of his day. He flouted the Star Chamber Decree of 1637\u00a0when he published his tracts on divorce without license. His Areopagitica<\/em> also\u00a0appeared without permit or notice of publisher as required by the law. The\u00a0Areopagitica<\/em> has had an enormous impact on modern society, arguing, as it does,\u00a0that without the freedom of speech, there can be no freedom of thought.<\/p>\n

The Areopagitica presents the history of censorship from antiquity to Milton\u2019s day\u00a0in an eloquent and compelling narrative. Freedom of speech and freedom of the\u00a0press are presented as inalienable rights of humankind. Without free exchange\u00a0of ideas, Milton claims that moral, intellectual, and societal development is\u00a0impossible. From this book comes one of the most powerful statements on the\u00a0freedom of the press ever written: \u201cas good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book;\u00a0who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, God\u2019s Image; but hee who destroyes a\u00a0good Book, kills reason it selfe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, six years later, in 1650, Milton, now part of the ruling party, was\u00a0issued a warrant to search the rooms of William Prynne, the Puritan writer with\u00a0whom he had often squabbled in print. The warrant authorizes Milton to \u201cseize\u00a0all writings … of dangerous nature against the Commonwealth.\u201d Prynne was\u00a0arrested five days later and sentenced to three years in prison for expressing views\u00a0contrary to those held by Milton and the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

The University of Illinois holds both these documents, historical proof that\u00a0freedom of speech is easier to preach than practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Milton (1608-1674). Areopagitica, A speech of Mr. John Milton for the\u00a0liberty of vnlicenc’d printing to the Parliament of England. London: [s.n.], 1644.\u00a0Shelfmark: 821 M64 N6. With manuscript warrant issued to John Milton on 25 June 1650. Shelfmark:\u00a0Pre-1650 MS 0168 John Milton, arguably the most significant English poet of the seventeenth\u00a0century, was also a republican […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}