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Milton’s logic: the early years

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Ettenhuber, K 

Abstract

This article revisits the long-established claim that Milton was trained as a Ramist during his Cambridge studies, arguing that, by the 1620s, Ramism had been superseded by a method of instruction based on the systematic textbooks produced chiefly by Bartholomew Keckermann and Franco Burgersdijk. This hypothesis has a number of implications for our approach to the question of Milton’s intellectual development. I argue that the terms and labels we use to describe Milton’s logic training should be nuanced and updated in light of advances in scholarship since Ong’s influential work on the Artis Logicae. A re-examination of Milton’s university training also qualifies our current understanding of the Prolusions as compositions arising from an anti-scholastic mentality and redirects attention to their function as academic exercises. In conclusion, I briefly consider the potential impact of Keckermann’s method on a reading of Milton’s own theological “systems” in De Doctrina Christiana and Paradise Lost.

Description

Keywords

47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies

Journal Title

Seventeenth Century

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0268-117X
2050-4616

Volume Title

36

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Rights

All rights reserved