“On Shakespeare”

My personal feeling is that it's worth knowing poems by poets about other poets.  Ben Johnson also wrote about Shakespeare, and Andrew Marvell wrote about Milton.  It's a good idea to keep these things in mind because ETS wants you to be able to place such poets in a meaningful constellation of influences.

What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones, The labour of an age in piled Stones, Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Under a Star- ypointing Pyramid ? Dear son of memory , great heir of Fame, What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thy self a live-long Monument. For whilst to th' shame of slow- endeavouring art, Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book, Those Delphick lines with deep impression took, Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving, Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving ; And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie, That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

“On the Late Massacre in Piedmont”

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold, Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones; Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

“When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” (also sometimes called “On his blindness”)

When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide, "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask; But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies "God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait."

Aeropagitica

Areopagitica is John Milton's impassioned (if not initially successful) protest against censorship and obstruction of the press. While the work did not produce immediate results and seems rather conservative to modern tastes, it grew to have great significance to later generations and was instrumental in forming many modern defenses of literary freedom.

Throughout the piece, Milton makes numerous religious and classical allusions (to the point of tedium). He considered the political freedom of ancient Greece to have been an ideal situation and attempts to link the greatness of Greece with the greatness of England. In addition, the Protestant Milton got a tremendous mileage out of continually evoking the frightening and hated visage of the Catholic Church, which had created in 1559 the infamous "Index of Prohibited Books".

Milton brings up three central points in his attack of censorship. Firstly, books are not the sole purveyors of evil or destructive information, so attempts to halt the flow of evil or destructive information by regulating book publishing would necessarily be ineffective. Secondly, you would need inhumanly perfect individuals to serve as judges, or personal biases and misunderstanding would creep into the system and damage the chances that "good" books had of publication. Thirdly, even "bad" books can serve a constructive purpose by strengthening an individual's resistance to faulty or evil ideas - if a person can be exposed to poisonous thoughts and triumph, their spirit will be the stronger for the contest.

"For Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unlesse warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life."

*Comus

Comus is a masque about the attempted seduction of a young girl by Comus, a supernatural being. The Lady stands firm, secure in the sanctity of her virginity, and eventually her brothers (along with an attendant spirit or two) come to her rescue.

Comus is of interest due to being a very early example of John Milton's work (certain elements of Lucifer of Paradise Lost can be seen in Comus). Additionally, Comus is dedicated to the Earl of Bridgewater and features his children in the primary roles. Debate still rages about whether or not Milton intended the masque to address an unpleasant situation involving the Earl's sister-in-law and niece, where both women were raped repeatedly by members of their household. Comus is very much absorbed in the mental and spiritual aspects of chastity and could be viewed as a defense of the victims of sexual assault (who still have their spiritual chastity "intact"), if read with the family history in mind.

From Comus:

"Love virtue, she alone is free; She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime: Or, if virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her."