BEFORE COMMENCING THE studies of Milton's personality in action in the main chapters, I need to ground them in certain indispensable contexts. Did Milton author the work? Why is it in Latin, and of what sort? What readership, and kind of reading, does the work require?

The Authorship Question

William Hunter made much of discontinuities and differences between De Doctrina and Milton as known from his life and other works, and between one part of De Doctrina and another. Accordingly, if I am to describe the “personal” dynamic of the work, and Milton's “personality” expressed within it, we need to be sure that Milton was indeed its author, throughout. Fuller accounts, written by others and/ or myself, can be found in MMsDDC: here, at whatever risk of repetition in later chapters, I summarize the things which stand out, and dwell on the linguistic matters which are my chief concern.

Three main possibilities confront us: first, De Doctrina was composed in full by Milton; second, it was composed in part by Milton; third, it was not composed by him at all, whether by a single unknown or several. Hunter suggested one or two names for the third possibility: none drew support. The second possibility complicated proceedings. He observed, for instance, that Book 1, Chapter 10 used the three different Latin words for “marriage.” But Donald Cullington demonstrated that the three words have distinct meanings, which Milton differentiates here just as classical Latin had done. Indeed, within the headlong reverie of Chapter 10, divided authorship is singularly unlikely. It repeats so many of Milton's published arguments about divorce. To tell the truth, while we must thank Hunter for calling such attention to De Doctrina in its original Latin, he did at times resist the natural, obvious, first explanation.

If we start afresh, on the other hand, we find Milton's authorship quite secure unless and until one undertakes to suspect everything. The MS carries his name, at the beginning and on page seven where the first substantive chapter begins. Although it is not written in his own hand, he was blind, and could not have penned it even if he had wanted to.