Areopagitica

by

John Milton

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A famous lawmaker in Sparta during the eight century B.C.E. Milton claims that Lycurgus encouraged Spartans to read Greek poets like Homer and Thales. Homer and Thales would have been viewed as foreign writers during Lycurgus’s time, but Lycurgus did not suppress their controversial books. Milton offers Lycurgus as an example of a lawmaker who was tolerant of competing ideas and respected books.

Lycurgus Quotes in Areopagitica

The Areopagitica quotes below are all either spoken by Lycurgus or refer to Lycurgus. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Religion, Censorship, and Reason Theme Icon
).
Areopagitica Quotes

Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes the loosest of them all, to his royal scholar Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused, if holy Chrysostom as is reported nightly studied so much the same author, and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon. That other leading city of Greece, Lacedaemon, considering that Lycurgus their lawgiver was so addicted to elegant learning as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wondered how museless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war.

Related Characters: John Milton (speaker), The English Parliament, Plato, Epicurus, Aristophanes, Dionysius, Lycurgus, Homer, Thales
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
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Lycurgus Quotes in Areopagitica

The Areopagitica quotes below are all either spoken by Lycurgus or refer to Lycurgus. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Religion, Censorship, and Reason Theme Icon
).
Areopagitica Quotes

Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes the loosest of them all, to his royal scholar Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused, if holy Chrysostom as is reported nightly studied so much the same author, and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon. That other leading city of Greece, Lacedaemon, considering that Lycurgus their lawgiver was so addicted to elegant learning as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wondered how museless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war.

Related Characters: John Milton (speaker), The English Parliament, Plato, Epicurus, Aristophanes, Dionysius, Lycurgus, Homer, Thales
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis: