John Milton and Republicanism

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John Milton's repubicanism has been, in the main, studied in connection with classical republicanism. The purpose of this research is to conseider the relationship between Protestant republicanism and England's inperialistic expansion, while placing Milton's republican thoughts within a broader framework.In order to demonstrate the moral and economic superiority of a republic over a monarchy, the English republicans often tried to justify republican settlement within a providential framework. The urge for territorial expansion fitted both republican and religious trends in English politics; and the fusion of religious and secular arguments is evident in Milton's thought in a pamphelt called Readie and Easie Way. England is to be, according to milton's reading of Machiavelli's republican typology in his Disorsi, "a commonwealth for expansion", and this expansive republic should prosper as a sign of England's divine misson. By a blend of religious and republican rhetoric, Milton reinterp … More rets Machiavelli's expansive republic in terms of God's elect. He associates republicanism with England's national interest: the imperial aspiration is sanctioned by God and the English republic has achieved the territorial expansion because the republic has a special status as God's chosen nation.Throughout the 17th century, the proliferation of written media and the ideological act of reproduction and interpretation combined to open up a popular sphere of political debate. Once this space for dispute had been established, it became available to a wide spectrum of the public. In seventeenth century England, in fact, the development of news industry had been closely interwoven with anxieties about the Catholic counter reformation and Popish conspiracies aimed at overthrowing English Protestantism. Even though the public sphere was still in its nascent phase and lacks one very important factor (that is, reason) from the Habermasian perspective, republican supported by protestant nationalism eventually stimulated the emergence of a realm of critical and rational public debate. Less