Monks
Milton vividly describes monks “complimenting and ducking each to other,” deferential body language that colors them as intellectually cowardly and socially insincere. He also describes their shaven “reverences,” or the center of their heads, an image that makes the monks appear silly.
The City
London appears in “Areopagitica” as a city of industry. Rather than the architecture of the city, Milton focuses on describing the people as they work, whether making weapons for the war against the royalists, or sitting by their desks and devising arguments for democracy. His descriptions convey the feeling of activity and vibrancy we often feel in big cities.
Books as Children
One of the most surprising arguments in “Areopagitica” is Milton’s implication that we should treat books as persons, conferring on them similar rights. He strengthens that argument by describing the process of writing as a form of giving birth, and censorship as placing the book “before a jury ere it be born to the world, and undergo yet in darkness the judgement of Radamanth and his colleagues, ere it can pass the ferry backward into light.” The image of the dark room and forbidding judge before the childlike book makes the government censorship appear tyrannical.
Book Burning
One of the most compelling scenes in “Areopagitica” describes a moment in the Bible in which people converted to Christianity by St. Paul choose to burn their old books, because they contained dark magic. Milton writes that they “in remorse burnt those books which were their own.” The stark image of the men burning their own books emphasizes that it was a serious action, a decision that should never be taken for someone else.
