in other early modern English drama, Milton was genuinely a spaz im deeply surprised by this after only having read paradise lost and liking it as much as nearly anything else in the english canon lets review some of his behavior's
-
-
Show this thread
-
1. marries a lady, finds her too dull for his Big Brain she gets sick of his shit and goes back to live with her dad milton gets MAD and writes an impassioned defense of Christian divorce and desperately casts about for verses that would justify it for his case specifically
Show this thread -
2. eventually he decides to just go with bigamy and tries to court someone else naturally she rejects him out of hand HOWEVER his estranged wife hears about this and her pride is wounded and she returns to him "I dont want him but NO ONE ELSE can have him" i guess
Show this thread -
3. writes an impassioned defense of free speech and press in Areopagitica shortly thereafter is hired by the Cromwell regime and starts printing tracts defending the lord protectors censorship
Show this thread -
4. My favorite part. Milton becomes academic hatchet man for Cromwell Someone in Amsterdam publishes a screed, anonymously, attacking Cromwell Milton thinks hes figured out who it is and starts circulating rebuttals attacking the author
Show this thread -
ppl on the ground in Amsterdam get word of this and let him know he's got the wrong guy Milton's target publicly swears he didn't write it Milton keeps dragging this guy anyway eventually publishes a major work refuting the anti-Cromwell piece, 90% of which is ad hominem
Show this thread -
of fucking course the real author eventually comes out and acknowledges the work Milton simply refuses to believe it never in his life does he take the L
Show this thread -
this all feels like message board drama and I love it the internet is indeed a worthy medium for the continuation of the ancient Western intellectual tradition
Show this thread -
one of the best things about Durant is that he deploys a biographical approach to history when he wants to illustrate a particular epoch, he identifies some luminaries--kings, often; popes; authors; artists; scientists--and works through their lives, one at a time,
Show this thread -
but nevertheless weaves their arcs together. The effect is to see history as a tapestry of humanity; Leo X, say, was not just a potentate who took certain actions, but a complex person whose response to the reformation fell out of his character and those of his contemporaries
Show this thread -
broke: great man theory of history joke: social forces theory of history woke: history is the unfolding of the beautiful interplay of individual human spirits expressed in word and actionhttps://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1206495168733409282 …
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.