Between the age of thirty and forty Milton gave up verse almost entirely and took to prose writing.

Hie
descent into ‘the cool element of prose was the greatest sacrifice he could make to the puritan cause. “I
should not," he says, “choose this manner of writing, wherein, knowing myself, inferior to myself, led by
the genial power of nature to another task have the use, as I may account, but of my left hand.” Milton
tried his hand at numerous pamphlets, but his pamphlets and tracts have a narrow and special character.
These subjects are often out of date, so little interest in. To the modern reader that they would be
neglected were it not that they contain Milton’s numerous self-revelations, scrape in information about
his life and ideas, and also some magnificently eloquent passages. “His pamphlets are read not for their
political wisdom or because they represent the feeling of the great mass of Englishmen on either side,
but because of the high and confidential‘ temper of their faith in freedom and reason, the deep interest
at the ‘autobiographical cases’, and the strength and beauty of their prose.” Milton’s pamphlets are on
the subject of divorce, polity and ecclesiastical matters.

(a) Divorce Pamphlets : Milton wrote several divert. pamphlets in 1643 end 1644. In these pamphlets he
argued” biblical and other grounds for freedom of divorce on account of the lack of mutual sympathies
between the husband and his wife. Hi. Opinions created scandal even in our own day would be regarded
as advanced.

(b) Ecclesiastical Pamphlets : In Ecclesiastical pamphlet: Milton dealt with the question of religious liberty
against the episcopal form of church Government. Milton believed that the authority possessed by
bishop led to the suppression of individual authority’s freedom of preaching. The ecclesiastical
pamphlet: reveal Milton as a great lover of liberty and as a rebel against tyranny.

(0) Political Pamphlets : In political pamphlets Milton took up the matter of political liberty, arguing in his
own tongue with the English people on the True Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth. The tone of the
pamphlets is controversial and is marked with some bitterness.

Milton’s prose style is marked with scholarship and classical dignity. There is eloquence, rhetoric,
persuasiveness in his prose writing. “Milton’s prose is pedantic in structure and frequently scurrilous in
phraseology, but it rises to highest English prose has not often attained. His command of word, phrase
and figure learned and poetical, homely and sublime, is unlimited, and if rhythm of his sentences is not
as regular as Hooker’s and Browne’s are so flowing as Taylor’s, it has at its best larger compass as in none
of them is the poet’s fine ear for musical combinations of consonants and vowels so obvious. Rich in
prose poetry as English literature is, it has nothing that is sustained elevation of thought and splendour
of phrase surpasses Areopczgzizticar,.”1 Milton’s sentences are pretty long in length and it appears that
the puritan poet has not given Special care to the formation of the shape and limit of his sentences.
Nothing is more curious than to see how he, the great architect of the paragraph and the sentence in
verse, seems to be utterly ignorant of both the law.

The first evident is that Milton to whom prose was not as verse was his native organ of speech, suffered
exceptionally from the three vices of the prose of his age--the tendency to an unduly laboured
vocabulary, that to an unduly Latinized syntax, and that to enormously long sentences. But on the whole
Milton’s work, inspite of the lack of humour and the presence of long winded gentences, is great
particularly in those passages where he scales to poetic heights of eloquence and where he gives
expression of feelings of universal character.

Milton’ s prose has just the qualities one would expect from a knowledge of his nature. Once he touches
on a noble thought, his genius lifts him from the ground, its wings bear him aloft and he soars on a
majestic flight through the highest heaven of imagination. To know how sublime these passages can be,
one must read whole pages together for it is in the sweep of a sustained effort that the greatness of
Milton’s power reveals itself.

)Areopagitica

Milton is mostly celebrated as a great poet. Yet, he is also a great master of English prose and in this
respect his Areopagitica, published in 1644, is a renowned work. The work is found strengthened with an
aspiring theme and a telling style.

Aeropagitica indicating the freedom of the press, is a clarion call for the liberty of the press against
monarchial or despotic authoritarianism. Milton, as a great champion of individual liberty, religious,
political, or civil, addresses here Parliament for the liberty of printing. is theme is definitely original and
quite ennobling for his age.

Milton's high theme is expressed in a language that marks equally his profundity and 1mpuls1venes 0/
His high thoughts are found echoed in his powerfully chosen words, and his voice seems often
overwhelming, as in the following instance -"Give me the liberty to know and to argue freely, according
to my conscience, above all liberties." Indeed, Areopagitica bears out Milton’s command over a forceful
impulsive prose-style and the work remains a monumental edifice in the powerful profound prose
literature of the Puritan Age.

Milton's rose-style, as marked in Areopagitica, is animated With grace and force. it is possessed of a
poetic ardour, and Seems to bear all the distinctive qualities that make his poetical Style so grand and
majestic. There is not the least of doubt that Milton's prose-style in Areopagiitica is of immense
importance in the growth of English prose literature.