When John Milton wrote Areopagitica in 1644, he was not making a contribution to the great debate on church versus state or the limits of toleration, except incidentally. Areopagitica was the result of the response to his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce the previous year. Advocating divorce seemed to strike at the roots of any religious society; it was universally condemned, and a divine of the Westminster Assembly demanded from the pulpit that Milton's tract be burnt. The Stationers' Company, less interested in theology than the preservation of the copyright system (Milton, like most of his contemporaries, had not obtained a license for the book), joined in the chorus of condemnation. In Areopagitica, Milton first of all defended himself and his right to express what he had written, and then he moved on to consider a new aspect of the problem, the rights of a book itself, independent of the intention of its author.

On the day the English Parliament abolished the Court of Star Chamber and the ecclesiastical Court of High Commission, freedom of the press, both as an idea and as a material fact, was born. It was to take some time to grow to maturity, and its first years were not without risk and dangers. Parliament had no intention of setting the press free--rather of transferring control into its own hands. But when it finally got around to tackling the problem two years later with the Ordinance of June 16, 1643, Pandora's box had opened--political consciousness had come to the country, brought by the hundreds of books and pamphlets that had been printed in the interval. So not only did this Ordinance have little or no practical effect, it created a new and separate idea of debate among the mass of religious and political controversy: How free can speech be? It was against this background that Areopagitica was published in 1644.

Commentary by Nicolas Barker, searchable live text.

约翰·弥尔顿 John Milton

1608-1674

英国诗人、政论家。1608年12月9曰出生于伦敦一个富裕的清教徒家庭。父亲爱好文学，受其影响，弥尔顿从小喜爱读书，尤其喜爱文学。1625年16岁时入剑桥大学，并开始写诗，1632年取得硕士学位。因目睹当时国教曰趋反动，他放弃了当教会牧师的念头，闭门攻读文学6年，一心想写出能传世的伟大诗篇。

1638年弥尔顿为增长见闻到当时欧洲文化中心意大利旅行，拜会了当地的文人志士，其中有被天主教会囚禁的伽利略。弥尔顿深为伽利略在逆境中坚持真理的精神所感动。翌年听说英国革命即将爆发，便中止旅行，仓促回国，投身革命运动。

1641年，弥尔顿站在革命的清教徒一边，开始参加宗教论战，反对封建王朝的支柱国教。他在一年多的时间里发表了5本有关宗教自由的小册子1644年为争取言论自由而写了《论出版自由》。 1649年，革命阵营中的独立派将国王推上断头台，成立共和国。弥尔顿为提高革命人民的信心和巩固革命政权，发表《论国王与官吏的职权》等文，并参加了革命＝工作，担任拉丁文秘书职务。1652年因劳累过度，双目失明。

1660年，王朝复辟，弥尔顿被捕入狱，不久又被释放。从此他专心写诗，为实现伟大的文学抱负而艰苦努力，在亲友的协助下，共写出3首长诗：《失乐园》(1667)，《复乐园》(1671)和《力士参孙》(1671)。1674年11月8曰卒于伦敦。

写作背景：

《论出版自由》是密尔顿在1644年向英国国会提出的一篇演说词。1644年是英国资产阶级向斯图亚特王朝作斗争取得初步胜利的时期，革命内部的资产阶级上层分子长老派害怕革命继续深入，他们竭力控制人民的宗教信仰和政治思想，力图与王党妥协。密尔顿为了争取人民言论出版自由，写了这篇政论，向国会提出呼吁，并在演词中对长老派提出了警告。