1. Reformation and Protestantism

2. Reformation Thirty Years’ War
‘English Reformation’ (Church of England, 1532)
Puritans, Levellers, Independents, Diggers, Quakers, Shakers, Presbyterians (Church of Scotland, John Knox, 1560), Methodists
Religious contexts of life: witch-hunts, the reality of the devil

3. Protestantism
„Any man who wishes to be saved must work out his beliefs for himself” (Milton)
a personally FELT religion
less emphasis on things between the individual and the word of God:
„God hath revealed the way of eternal salvation only to the individual faith of every man” (Milton);
„God’s word alone is the rule of faith” (Milton)

4. The idea of the Covenant
in Paradise Lost: the Spirit „doth prefer / Before all Temples th’upright heart and pure” (I. 17-8)
No mediators, no intercession: just the word of God

5. Bible translations Luther 1534; Geneva Bible 1560
Vizsolyi Biblia (Károli Gáspár, publ. 1590)
John Wyclif(fe), 1384 (from Latin); William Tyndale (from Hebrew and Greek)
Early 17th century: the King James Bible (the „Authorized Version”)

6. John Milton ( )

7. Milton Renaissance poet (poetry: vocation) poeta doctus
+Protestant sense of poetic mission
tracts (in Latin and English): theology (De Doctrina Christiana), government, freedom of speech and censorship (Areopagitica, 1644), divorce
Defensio Prima (1650-5): justification of the Regicide

8. Munkácsy Mihály: A vak Milton műveit diktálja leányainak (1878)

9. Orlay Petrich Soma: A vak Milton (1862)

10. Gustave Doré’s illustrations: Satan

11. Satan on his throne

12. Satan’s journey

13. Satan
and the sublime

14. Satan, Adam and Eve

15. Satan, Adam and Eve

16. William Blake:
Satan envious of Adam and Eve