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Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicenced printing to the Parliament of England is a prose work by John Milton, published November 23, 1644, at the height of the English Civil War. Milton's Areopagitica is titled after a speech written by the Athenian orator Isocrates in the 5th century BCE. This earlier speech also supported freedom of speech. The Areopagus was the place where the tribunal of the city of Athens used to meet. Isocrates hoped to restore the Court of the Areopagus.
Although Milton was religious and a parliamentarian, he used the book to argue against censorship. Parliament had begun to restrict freedom of speech, and Milton believed that this would be damaging to the learning process.
External link
- Online text (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/) from Dartmouth's Milton Reading room.
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