Milton, John - Richard F. Hardin (essay date 1992)
Richard F. Hardin (essay date 1992)
SOURCE: "Milton and Civil Idolatry," in Civil Idolatry: Desacralizing and Monarchy in Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton, University of Delaware Press, 1992, pp. 164-201.
[Below, Hardin examines Milton's rejection of patriarchalism as a justification for kingship, discounting both the notions of fatherhood as the basis and origin for authority and the idea of the king as the father of the state.]
… Milton banished monarchy to hell in a century that published an unprecedented number of writings defending it as God's preferred method of government. He particularly undercut two myths of royalty that are not widely known today. One, the justification of monarchy by ancient conquest, is especially singled out in Paradise Regained. Another, with ramifications in all three poems, is the patriarchal theory, the view that fatherhood was the origin and even the model of good government. Just as Adam and all...
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