Lecture Nine

Lecture Nine Objectives: Training the students on analyzing poems Assignment: Choose any poem and analyze it Link: https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/american-poets-of-the-20th-century/how-to-analyze-poetry 2

WHEN I CONSIDER HOW MY LIGHT IS SPENT By John Milton 3

When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, 4

though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide; “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?” 5

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. 6

His state Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed, And post o’er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.” 7

In his poem, “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent,” Milton meditates on how to best serve God. 8

The speaker-much like Milton himself-is confronted with personal tragedy when he goes blind and can no longer write. Devastated, our speaker must come to grips with his condition and find hope in darkness. 9

The poem opens on a despairing world defined by night: “I’ve spent half my days, he laments woefully, “in this dark world and wide” (Milton 2).  10

Though the world is “wide” and beckons with possibility, it is amassed in black, rendering the speaker’s anguish at being excluded all the more tragic. 11

In the next lines, he continues to bemoan his misfortunate claiming that his “one talent which is death to hide” has been “lodg’d with me useless” (Milton 3-4).  12

In the same way that the vast possibilities of the world taunt him now that he’s incapacitated, that fact that his talent is “hidden” rather than unrecoverable operates to torment the speaker. 13

His one talent-his gift with words-is not permanently lost but rather “useless” without his sight, rendering his loss all the more excruciating. 14

The verb “lodge”-meaning to make firmly fixed or embedded in a particular place- creates a sense of claustrophobia as if his talent were being confined and points to his debilitating loss. 15

As readers and witnesses to his suffering, we feel sympathy for the speaker’s plight. When he spitefully questions God’s fairness a few lines later, we believe him justified: “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?” (Milton 7). 16

Hopeless and bitter, the speaker makes some valid points: how can God give us a destiny to fulfill but deny us the means to attain it? 17

Before the speaker can challenge the Almighty, however, Patience intervenes and explains the true meaning of service: “God doth not need/Either man’s work, or his own gifts: who best/ Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best” (Milton 8-11). 18

Though the speaker imagines “his work” as his service to God, Patience-personified as a full-blown proper noun with the ability to speak- tells him otherwise; 19

serving God is not money or prestige or the acquiring of worldly power but the willing acceptance of His will. 20

The speaker may believe he wants to write to serve God, but his true motives are a little less certain: 21

does he want to compose the next great American novel out of an altruistic need to glimpse some sort of existential truth or is he really an ambitious man whose new disability interferes with less lofty, material objectives? 22

In this way, the speaker stands in for us, the reader In this way, the speaker stands in for us, the reader. Like our tormented speaker, we, too, confuse worldly success with spiritual attainment. What’s interesting about Patience’s response is her use of the word “bear.” 23

The word “bear” carries heavy, burdensome connotations and possesses several meanings: 1) to carry; 2) to take responsibility for; 3) to be able to accept or stand up to; and 4) to endure. Each of these definitions shares a solemn sense of duty. 24

What’s more fascinating is what we’re asked to bear, “his mild yoke” (Milton 11). Acting as the grammatical object of the verb “bear,” 25

the noun “yoke” refers to a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to a plow or cart that they are to pull. Here, the implicit comparison of man to steer and God to driver suggests man’s proper role is a submissive one. 26

Rather than wrestle our fate from the universe, Milton seems to suggest we are better off assenting to God’s plan (however seemingly heartless or unfair) and letting him act as our guide. 27

This notion of service as obedience is a very Christian idea and echoes Milton’s argument for self-effacement and submission in his masterwork Paradise Lost. 28

The poem’s final line- “they also serve who only stand and wait”-reinforces this image of service as passive and acts as a hopeful reminder to the depressed and downtrodden: if we sit and wait, Milton argues, darkness is usually just before dawn. 29