# John Milton — Table-Talk character guide

> John Milton in Table-Talk by William Hazlitt.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Milton, Shakespeare or Milton, Milton or Cromwell

**First appearance:** 0017-volume-ii-on-milton-s-sonnets

## Snapshot

The blind republican poet whose sonnets Hazlitt reads as proof that greatness can address power without flattery and endure darkness without despair.

## Who they are

Milton stands in Hazlitt's gallery as the poet who kept his understanding erect before Cromwell and Fairfax, paying tribute to conquerors without self-degradation. The tension Hazlitt finds is between Milton's confessed vanity about his clear, unblemished eyes and the humbled patience of the sonnet on his blindness. These readings anchor the collection's argument that true intellectual superiority is moral as well as literary, and that genius answers to conscience rather than to patrons.

## Relationships

### [William Hazlitt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/characters/william_hazlitt)

_psychological_

Hazlitt had an intense intellectual obsession with Milton, often analyzing his poetry and character in essays.

## In the story

### [On the Pleasure of Painting](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-i-on-the-pleasure-of-painting)

Quoted indirectly via the poet's line 'My mind to me a kingdom is' and referenced in the phrase 'Pure in the last recesses of the mind.'

### [The Same Subject Continued](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-i-the-same-subject-continued)

Mentioned in a quote about the Louvre: 'if thou hast not seen the Louvre thou art damned!'—a paraphrase of Milton.

### [The Same Subject Continued](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-i-the-same-subject-continued)

Mentioned as embodying his political and personal history in 'Paradise Lost'; his genius is contrasted with Shakespeare's.

### [On the Ignorance of the Learned](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-i-on-the-ignorance-of-the-learned)

Contrasted with Shakespeare as a scholastic thinker; also mentioned for solecisms in his Latin style.

### [On Living to One’s-Self](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-i-on-living-to-one-s-self)

Mentioned as an example of a great author whose posterity (the public) now honors him, but who would likely be neglected if alive.

### [On Thought and Action](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-i-on-thought-and-action)

Compared with Cromwell in a rhetorical question about greatness.

### [On Milton's Sonnets](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-ii-on-milton-s-sonnets)

Central subject of the chapter; Hazlitt analyzes his sonnets and praises his sincerity, patriotism, and moral consistency.

### [On Criticism](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-ii-on-criticism)

Mentioned as an author whose 'Paradise Lost' baffled formalist critics.

### [On Great and Little Things](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-ii-on-great-and-little-things)

Mentioned in the context of literary comparisons and the psychology of fame.

### [On Corporate Bodies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-ii-on-corporate-bodies)

Referenced indirectly through the phrase 'the very stones prate' (a paraphrase from Milton's 'Comus').

### [On the Knowledge of Character](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/chapters/volume-ii-on-the-knowledge-of-character)

Contrasted with Shakespeare as having a high opinion of himself and being conscious of his powers.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/characters/john_milton
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/table_talk_se/characters