“Studious Retirement” 1632–1638Latin, Greek, and Italian, with some later entries in English and French. Shawcross
speculates that he began it only in the autumn of 1637, after he had virtually com-
pleted the reading program described in the letter to Diodati, on the assumption
that this book relates to his preparation as a poet, a vocation he could only affirm
after working through debilitating strains in his homoerotic relationship with Diodati
and after his mother’s death.^57 But this date rests on a highly speculative psychologi-
cal profile for Milton, and a questionable view of his purposes in the Commonplace
Book: it is surely more likely that Milton began taking notes as he read, as part of his
preparation as a scholar. What we can say, on the evidence of handwriting, the
form of “e” used, the Diodati letter, and other considerations, is that during the
Horton period – from 1635 or 1636 to May, 1638 when he left for the Continent
- Milton took notes in this Commonplace Book from about 28 books.^58 There are
no entries from the classics or the Bible, but a now lost Index Theologicus may have
been started about this time or a little later.^59 Milton’s first entries in the “Ethical”
category were to the following topics: moral evil, avarice, gluttony, suicide, the
knowledge of literature, curiosity, music, sloth, lying. In the “Economic” (Domes-
tic) category he gathered texts on these subjects: food, conduct, matrimony, the
education of children, poverty, alms, and usury. And in the “Political” section he
collected texts under these heads: state, kings (two pages), subjects, nobility, prop-
erty and taxes, plague, athletic games, and public shows. Milton seems to have
begun his studies on early church history and theology with Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical
History and Life of Constantine.^60 He then proceeded to other historians and church
Fathers, among them Tertullian, Ignatius, Clement of Alexandria, Sulpicius Severus,
Cyprian, Justin Martyr, Procopius, Sigonius, and Nicophoras Gregoras.^61 He also
took notes on literary texts: Prudentius’s Peristephanon; Dante’s Convivio and
Commedia,^62 Boccaccio’s Vita di Dante and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.
Some entries cast light on Milton’s concerns and attitudes at this juncture. Excerpts
from Tertullian and Cyprian against public shows (and a later note refuting those argu-
ments) relate to the recreation controversy and the issues around masking and plays.
Caroline censorship likely prompted his approving citation of patristic arguments al-
lowing Christians to read profane writers. Several entries defend marriage for bishops
and clergy, as well as polygamy among the Jews and bigamy in Christian times, indicat-
ing Milton’s disposition to question orthodox views of marriage well before his own
marriage and divorce tracts. His uncertainties about a career choice probably prompted
this comment on a passage in Dante: “The nature of each person should be especially
observed and not bent in another direction; for God does not intend all people for one
thing, but for each one his own work” (CPW I, 405). Among the several entries under
“King” are instances of censure and the deposition of rulers, as well as an extract from
Sulpicius Severus which Milton often used in later polemic argument: “the name of
kings has always been hateful to free peoples, and he [God] condemns the action of the
Hebrews in choosing to exchange their freedom for servitude” (CPW I, 440). Milton’s
antiroyalist sentiments were already in evidence.