Ioannis Miltonis: His Latin Prose and Poetry

It is not easy, as I said to identify from existing anthologies which of Milton's works were written in Latin, which in English, and who provided the translations. A bit of detective work shows that of a standard 4 volume set of Milton's poetry one volume being commentary, about half of the last volume is in Latin, Greek, and Italian, the whole corpus having been moved to the end where it will least offend the non-Latinate, a sort of Apocryphal Appendix, as it were, of literature that never should have happened. Thus, we have about one-sixth of Milton's poetry is in Latin or related languages, non-English. Most of this is poetry composed from age 17 (eight years into his Latin education) to age 25, when he attained the Bachelor's degree at Christ College.

From this short list, we learn that Milton was in the habit of writing a few hundred lines of elegaic Latin verse each year, a practice he only gave up at the Rebellion.

• 1625, Age 17
  
  Carmina Elegiaca 20vv. + 8vv.
  
• 1626
  
  Elegy I, 92 vv.
  
  In Obitum Procancellarii Medici, 48vv.
  
  Elegy II, 24vv.
  
  In proditionem Bombardicam, 8vv.; In eandem, 10vv.; in eandem, 12vv. + 4vv. + 4vv.
  
  In Quintem Novembris, 226vv.
  
  Elegy III, 68vv.
  
  Elegy IV, 126vv.
  
• 1627
  
  In obitum praesulis eliensis, 68vv.
  
• 1628
  
  At a Vacation Exercise in the College, part Latin, Part English (lat. lost?)
  
  Naturam Non Pati Senium, 69vv.
  
• 1629
  
  Elegy V, 140vv.
  
  Elegy VI, 90vv.
  
• 1630
  
  De Idea Platonica qemadmodum Aristoteles Intellexit, 39vv.
  
  Elegy VII, 102+10vv.
  
• 1637
  
  Ad Patrem, 250vv.
  
• 1639
  
  Ad Salsillum, 41vv.
  
  Mansus, 100vv.
  
  Ad Leonoram Romae Canentem, 10vv. + 12vv.+8vv.
  
• 1640
  
  Epitaphium Damonis, 119vv.
  
• 1645 (Greek inscription on his likeness)
  
  In effigiei eius sculptorem
  
• 1647
  
  Ad Ioannem Rousium, 87vv.
  

The bulk of these are given at the Dartmouth site, as enumerated here:

http://www.urich.edu/~creamer/milton/etexts.html

Milton's Latin prose is here enumerated, so far as I know it:

• His Prolusions (Academic exercises from college, published two years before his death), which are often not identified as translations in the anthologies, but are.
  
• Joannis Miltoni Angli Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda (1654), which is a
  reply to Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Caelum adversus Parricidas Anglicanos (1652)
  anon. at the time, Peter du Moulin known at Restoration, supplied in tr. by Robert Fellows, 1806.
  
• Defensio secunda
  
• Defensio tertia
  
• The posthumous Treatise on The Christian Doctrine (tr., but this is not mentioned except in Preface)
  

In addition to these works, two others that are relevant to Anglo-Latin tradition, are his revision of Lily's Grammar already alluded to, and his Dialectica (Latin certainly but given in English in the Columbia complete works--is the translation even Milton's?). From the above list, we see that his Latin essentially went underground at the Rebellion, except when responding to the Anglo-Latin minority, in relation to education, or works composed in the 1640s but not later released. Thus, we demonstrate the dimensions of the English revolution over bilingualism, as perhaps in a future post we will show Milton's active role in it. It is interesting to see how far the Puritans went, from the time of Massachussetts governor John Winthrop's father Adam, who, though a Puritan, was not a separatist, whose library was half composed of half Latin books, to the bellicose English-only stance that would slowly emerge as a prominent characteristic of the Puritan, the Whig, the Covenanter, some (less conservative) Federalists, the Protestant, and ultimately the Liberals and Conservatives who look back to the "English Liberty" tradition of Milton.