Is Milton Better than Shakespeare?
The title is an attention-getting device. This isn’t a comparison of the two Renaissance colossi of English literature. It’s an explication of Milton on liberty, which Smith holds influenced modern notions of individuality and independence, especially through America’s Founding Fathers, whose prose, Smith says, is essentially Miltonic. Drawing on all the major prose as well as the poems, Smith highlights such Miltonic notions as the creativity of divorce, the absolute freedom of the press, the ineluctable viciousness of monarchy, the republic of virtue (which rather uncomfortably recalls Plato’s regime of philosopher-kings), and the division of creational responsibility within the Trinity. Finally, Smith asserts that, beautiful as Milton’s expression is (and close appreciation of many great passages of his poetry and prose is the most satisfying aspect of the book), his writings don’t contain a coherent structure of thought. Milton is consistent only in “inviting difference and dissent.” Perhaps that is why our perpetually rebellious pop culture compulsively references Milton, especially his Satan in Paradise Lost. An inquiry as fascinating as it is demanding. --Ray Olson