The Republic Ideas Of John Milton

Britain is famous for its conservatism and fewer conflicts or violent behaviors happen in the early modern England. However, the 17 century is indeed an exception; which faced the civil war, death sentences of the king, and debates on political requests among various interest groups. As a polemicist for the judgment of the tyrant and the support of the commonwealth, John Milton made debates with different groups and wrote large quantity of political prose to call on people to choose the Republic, making his thoughts a key part of the republicanism. This paper is divided into three chapters and their main contents are as follows:Chapter one introduces the background of Milton’s republicanism, including three aspects:Milton’s social environment of growing up, ideological and cultural background, and the change of Milton’s career choice from being a poet to be a polemicist. Political conflicts have always existed in British, but Stuart’s successors kept trying to expand monarchy under the pursuit of "divine right of kings". Lack of political sensitivity, Charles I advocated "divine right of kings" and ignored parliament and people’s willing. His attempt to put "divine right of kings" into practice eventually triggered a widely involved civil war. Under the increasingly personal rule of Charles I and its breakdown in constitutional confusion and war, Milton was well educated and deeply influenced by classical republicanism. So he gave up his career as a poet, and devoted himself into the establishment of the republic.Chapter two, the main body of this essay, discusses Milton’s political thought based on republicanism. Firstly, Milton tried to protect the republic from being slandered and attacked by the Royalists, announcing that Charles was guilty enough to have a final judgment from the people, who is given the rights by law and tradition. Secondly, he argued that as the most ideal governmental system, a republic should be established to benefit the people. It is a government to benefit people’s interests, fulfill people’s requests, but not make decisions instead of people.Chapter three analyses the importance and limitation of Milton’s republicanism. Milton was appointed as the secretary of the Republic for foreign correspondence in Latin and it makes his thought, both in theory and practice, have great influences on the development of English politics. However, there are still limits in Milton’s theory. First, he insist on elitism, not egalitarianism; Second, he gives too more trusts to "elites", but much less supervision; third, his thoughts focus more on dealing with problem, less on the system of his theory.The last part is a conclusion, Milton’s thoughts played an important part not only in political practice, but also in thoughts, both during his time and later on. China as a newly built Republic, it is quite meaningful for our revolution in political system to do some research on Milton’s theory.