Publicists 17th century
Benedictus Spinoza (Spanish: Baruj Espinosa) at birth Baruch Spinoza is a Dutch philosopher-rationalist of Jewish origin, a bright representative of the Age of Enlightenment.
Spinoza was born into a family of Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam, who converted to Christianity but returned to Judaism. As a young man, he was considered an outstanding Talmudic scholar and a promising religious scholar. But, inspired by the philosophical writings of René Descartes and Francis Bacon, the young philosopher soon fell outside the orthodox tradition because of his radical views. In 1656 he was severely excommunicated for heresy.
For the rest of his life, Spinoza spent his modest life grinding lenses and privately teaching philosophy, but he also wrote anonymously published philosophical treatises and secretly exchanged letters with many philosophically inclined luminaries of the wider European Enlightenment. Spinoza's only book, published in 1663 in Amsterdam under his own name, was Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae Pars I, & II, More Geometrico demonstrate (Principles of Cartesian Philosophy). These principles served as a preparatory work for many metaphysical views in his most important treatise, Ethics (1677).
Benedict Spinoza defended the philosophical life from religious persecution and advocated a new, liberal, democratic regime to support that life. Although Spinoza was often persecuted as an atheist in his time, his writings played an important role in shaping philosophy, theology, and politics in the centuries to come. Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth century, Spinoza is one of the most relevant today.
John Milton was a British poet and writer-publicist, intellectual and politician of the English Revolutionary period.
Milton first planned to become a priest, studied at Cambridge University, and then abandoned this activity. Several years he spent reading and self-education, learning many languages. In 1638 Milton traveled around the continent for about a year and a half, spending much time in Italy, primarily in Rome and Florence. He befriended young Italian literati, and his encounter with Galileo further influenced his writing.
Milton became best known for his poem Paradise Lost in Ten Books, which declares its purpose to justify the ways of God to man, but also touches on both universal and personal themes. Milton was the first author to use the word "cosmos" in our modern sense of "outer space," and his space epic takes place in a confidently Copernican universe.
In his prose works, Milton advocated the abolition of the Church of England and the execution of Charles I. From the outbreak of the English Civil Wars in 1642 and long after the restoration of Charles II as king in 1660, he spoke out against tyranny and state-sanctioned religion in all his works. As a Protestant, Milton was often in conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. As a civil servant, Milton became the voice of the English Commonwealth after 1649 and then under Oliver Cromwell, conducting international correspondence and defending the government against polemical attacks from abroad.
John Milton is considered the most important English writer after William Shakespeare. Author of political pamphlets and religious treatises, he is one of the most famous writers of the 1650s, the vibrant era of the English Revolution (Civil War).
