MILTON AT MONTICELLO

A scholarly analysis focuses on the intellectual debt Thomas Jefferson owes to a celebrated poet.

Anderson delves deeply into the influence John Milton exerted over Jefferson, considering them “two seeds in the cross pollination of liberty between England and America.” Jefferson read Milton and made notes in a commonplace book—a kind of general intellectual diary—and quoted both Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes. The author argues, through an intriguing combination of exegetical rigor and the “intuition of a poet,” that Milton provided the categories from which Jefferson could develop his argument against the establishment of the Anglican Church in Virginia and the “spiritual tyranny” of politically sanctioned religion in general. In addition, Jefferson borrowed from Milton’s “language of natural rights” in crafting foundational political documents like the Bill for Religious Freedom and the Declaration of Independence. Similarly, Anderson convincingly argues, Jefferson’s reflections on equality and his “painful insights” into slavery also evince a reliance on his reading of Milton. The author’s scholarship is as careful as it is creative—he imagines how Jefferson interpreted Milton’s Lycidas with impressive sensitivity. And while he generally focuses on Jefferson’s political philosophy, Anderson conjectures that the founder was inspired by Samson Agonistes to manage his own personal trials, his feelings of “betrayal and suffering.” This is a brief but far-reaching essay—the author also considers Milton’s impact on Jefferson’s writing style and even his tastes in horticultural design, asserting that “we can imagine the glimpse of Milton’s Eden incarnate in Monticello.” Writing in consistently lucid but impassioned prose, the author makes the argument that Milton remains a subject of great contemporary relevance: “At this time in our history, we still need John Milton as a voice for liberty.”

A persuasively argued work of Milton scholarship—meticulous and wise.