A Poem by John Milton (1608-1674) A Study Guide | ||||||||||||||
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Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings..© 2008 Type of Work and Year Written "On His Blindness" is a Petrarchan sonnet, a lyric poem with fourteen lines. This type of sonnet, popularized by the Italian priest Petrarch (1304-1374), has a rhyme scheme of ABBA, ABBA, CDE, and CDE. John Milton wrote the poem in 1655. For more information about sonnets, see Origin of the Sonnet Form, below. God judges humans on whether they labor for Him to the best of their ability. For example, if one carpenter can make only two chairs a day and another carpenter can make five, they both serve God equally well if the first carpenter makes his two chairs and the second makes his five. If one carpenter becomes severely disabled and cannot make even a single chair, he remains worthy in the sight of God. For, as Milton says in the last line of the poem, "they also serve who only stand and wait." Lines 3 to 6 of the poem allude to the "Parable of the Talents" in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, verses 14 to 30. In this famous parable, an employer who is going away for a time gives his three servants money in proportion to their ability to increase its value. He distributes the money in talents, a unit of weight used in ancient times to establish the value of gold, silver, or any other medium used as money. Thus, a Roman might pay ten talents of gold for military supplies or seven talents of silver for a quantity of food. In the "Parable of the Talents," the employer gives the first servant five talents of silver, the second servant two talents, and the third servant one talent. After the employer returns from the trip and asks for an accounting, the first servant reports that he doubled his talents to ten and the second that he doubled his to four. Both men receive promotions. The third servant then reports that he still has only one talent, for he did nothing to increase its value. Instead, he buried it. The employer denounces him for his laziness, gives his talent to the man with ten, and casts him outside into the darkness. All the lines in the poem are in iambic pentameter. In this metric pattern, a line has five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of ten syllables. The first two lines of the poem illustrate this pattern:
When I | con SID | er HOW.| my LIFE | is SPENT
1................2............
3...............4....................4
John Milton's eyesight began to fail in 1644. By 1652, he was totally blind. Oddly, he wrote his greatest works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, after he became blind. Many scholars rank Milton as second only to Shakespeare in poetic ability.
On
His Blindness
Text When I consider how my
light is spent1 Notes 1....light
is spent: This clause presents a double meaning: (a) how I spend my
days, (b) how it is that my sight is used up.
Examples of Figures of Speech Alliteration: my
days
in this dark
world
and wide (line 2)
.......The
sonnet form originated in Sicily in the thirteenth Century with Giacomo
da Lentino (1188-1240), a lawyer. The poetic traditions of the Provençal
region of France apparently influenced him, but he wrote his poems in the
Sicilian dialect of Italian. Some authorities credit another Italian, Guittone
d'Arezzo (1230-1294), with originating the sonnet. The English word "sonnet"
comes from the Italian word "sonetto," meaning "little song." Some early
sonnets were set to music, with accompaniment provided by a lute.
Study Questions and Essay Topics 1.
Write an essay that provides examples of people who exemplify the last
line of the poem.
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