Great poem Virgil... (:banana: )
Printable View
Great poem Virgil... (:banana: )
Well, glad we're agreed on that. The concern is definately the way Milton thinks he'll be judged by God.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
I thought you did here:Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Isn't that saying that you can't be certain that Milton believed in God from the start? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Yes, he is convinced that God exists. Why is it important for you that God speaks, or that there is "evidence" of His existence in the poem? It is not at all unusual for God not to speak in devotional poetry. In fact it's far more striking and unusual that Milton does have God the father speak so directly in PL. This poem takes the perspective of a man of faith going through this life, and the average Christian, even a very faithful one is probably not going to have direct personal chats with the voice of the Almighty the way Adam did in Eden. Usually the interaction with God is through prayer, through study of the scriptures, or through drawing inward on God-given virtues such as "patience." I think Milton is trying to present a realistic picture of how a person tries to understand God's purpose for him in the world. The poem doesn't describe God's voice because Milton isn't hearing God's voice. He's trying to understand what God's message is through scripture and through patience. I don't think that Milton would say that this means God doesn't exist in his poem, just that He makes Himself known in mysterious ways.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Well if you don't know then I don't. :lol: I thought you were trying to make a point about the latter half of the poem, but I was in too much of a rush to look at it carefully, so I was just saying we could come to that later. Maybe you were just pointing out that God doesn't speak in the last half though, which is something we're already talking about. I'm sure the discussion generally will turn to the last half of the poem sometime this week.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Milton does enjambment like no other poet I've ever encountered. I think it's this habit of running one line into the next that also accounts for his transgession of the usual compartments of the sonnet form, which you point out. Starting the major turn at the end of the second quatrain, for example, is a result of his desire to start the next thought mid line. It's this habit of his for splitting sentences, and (as you point out here) even sentence fragments, that often makes his verse so compelling. The effect is most evident in his lengthy work, like PL, when you find that, though it's a long poem, you simply can't put it down. He's incorporated what I think of as mini cliffhangers into each line. You can hardly ever stop reading on a certain line, because it starts a new thought midway through which you have to go to the next line to complete and so on until he decides what line to rest on, in this case the final line of the poem. As you say, this gives the final line an extra weight and gravitas. Unenjambed lines in Milton tend to be very powerful and memorable. They're often the ones we're invited to dwell on. I've often thought Milton uses a full line the way Shakespeare uses couplets, for finality and/or for emphasis.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
As to the question on who is speaking in the sestet, could it be that it's neither God or Milton.
I don't know if this has been discussed, but I read it (now for the first time in this way; I have always read it in the past as God's voice.) as "patience" speaking these words, patience personified acting like a diety or an angel. It's as if this angel, patience (unfortuantely it's not capitalized so I guess this reading could be suspect), is admonishing the narrator as to God's requirements.Quote:
...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. 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."
As I think I said in my post on voice in response to ktd, I too have always read it as patience doing the speaking at the end of the poem. It is puzzling that "patience" isn't capitalized but possibly a printer's oversight or something. It appears that way in the original printing, but I've seen it capitalized by some modern editors.Quote:
I don't know if this has been discussed, but I read it (now for the first time in this way; I have always read it in the past as God's voice.) as "patience" speaking these words, patience personified acting like a diety or an angel. It's as if this angel, patience (unfortuantely it's not capitalized so I guess this reading could be suspect), is admonishing the narrator as to God's requirements.
I'm not certain either way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
Because I want to know who is involved in the dialogue.Quote:
Yes, he is convinced that God exists. Why is it important for you that God speaks, or that there is "evidence" of His existence in the poem? It is not at all unusual for God not to speak in devotional poetry. In fact it's far more striking and unusual that Milton does have God the father speak so directly in PL. This poem takes the perspective of a man of faith going through this life, and the average Christian, even a very faithful one is probably not going to have direct personal chats with the voice of the Almighty the way Adam did in Eden. Usually the interaction with God is through prayer, through study of the scriptures, or through drawing inward on God-given virtues such as "patience." I think Milton is trying to present a realistic picture of how a person tries to understand God's purpose for him in the world. The poem doesn't describe God's voice because Milton isn't hearing God's voice. He's trying to understand what God's message is through scripture and through patience. I don't think that Milton would say that this means God doesn't exist in his poem, just that He makes Himself known in mysterious ways.
Petrarch said these are all references to biblical scriptures; so is it going to far to say it is the learn'd part of Milton himself that is reciting these scriptures?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
No it's not too far; it's certainly a possibility. The poem would then be a sort of monlogue with internal conflict. But Milton puts quotation marks around the voices, so I would just have to accept it as two separate voices.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
I'm sorry for repeating you Petrarch. I seem to sometimes have trouble concentrating on words on a screen. :nod: I did not grow up with computers and I absorb so much more from a printed page.Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
Another observation I would like to make in this poem is the metaphor in the opening line and how I think Milton develops it in two other places in the poem.
"When I consider how my light is spent"
Light isn't a commodity that gets used up. Light is really referring to his eye sight, and even eye sight doesn't get used up; it just is or isn't. The image I leap to here, and perhaps this is just me, is of a candle. So then we have a complicated metaphor, where his eye sight is like a candle burning and being used up.
Now I also see this candle imagery developed.
"though my soul more bent / To serve therewith my maker"
Soul more bent is like a candle flame bending toward something.
"They also serve who only stand and wait"
Isn't that essentially how a candle serves, by standing and waiting?
The significance of the candle imagery/metaphor is that it dramatizes Milton's theme, that we are souls serving God simply by our homage to him, a candle being a religious item that is used for adoration.
Make sense?
No worries. :) The comment was at the end of a rather lengthy post, so I'm sure it wasn't hard to miss. I also find the printed page easier to read over.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
I think the poem is essentially an internal dialogue. The quotation marks wouldn't really complicate this. It's not at all unusual in this period to have devotional poetry in which a person debates with himself, or two personified internal aspects of himself. The most common and obvious ones are things like debate between Body and Soul, Virtue and Temptation, Faith and Doubt etc. The different "voices" in such dialogues would include quotation marks. I think Milton's is a much more subtle and nuanced version of such an internal dialogue. The one thing I would add is that, for someone with a Christian faith like Milton, I think there is always the sense of the external God, being present in the internal. Milton might say that he is not trying to listen to himself as much as to the words presented to him by God in the scripture, and to the promptings of the Holy Spirit through "patience" within him (with patience possibly being, as Virg. suggested earlier, in some sense a sort of divine angel or intermediary). I don't think Milton would draw a line between an internal dialogue and one where God is present, since the idea is that God is always present in some way or another. The poem is a lot about the way that a person can tap into God's presence and how to interpret God's will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Yes, the light imagery is very rich here. I think the image of a candle is an apt way to think about it and, as you say, fits in well with the idea of "stand and wait." I hadn't really thought about the "soul more bent" being like a candle, and that may be a bit of a stretch, but generally speaking I think a candle is one good way of thinking about light in this poem. Both light and candles have also long been associated with life ("out, out, brief candle"), which is the obvious secondary meaning for "light" here. There's also the question of the light of the world (described as a "dark world and wide" early on), the light of day in relation to labour, and the idea of light as something "denied," which I think not only relates to his blindness, but ties in to a concern with being denied the light of eternal bliss in the future.Quote:
"When I consider how my light is spent"
Light isn't a commodity that gets used up. Light is really referring to his eye sight, and even eye sight doesn't get used up; it just is or isn't. The image I leap to here, and perhaps this is just me, is of a candle. So then we have a complicated metaphor, where his eye sight is like a candle burning and being used up.
Now I also see this candle imagery developed.
"though my soul more bent / To serve therewith my maker"
Soul more bent is like a candle flame bending toward something.
"They also serve who only stand and wait"
Isn't that essentially how a candle serves, by standing and waiting?
The significance of the candle imagery/metaphor is that it dramatizes Milton's theme, that we are souls serving God simply by our homage to him, a candle being a religious item that is used for adoration.
Make sense?
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. 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."
Is the they and the who in the first highlighted line the same they and who in the second highlighted line? I'm not sure if it is because the two lines would be redundant if this was the case. Why I'm asking this is because if the one 'who only stand and wait' is referring to Milton in his blind state, and the they is the same in both lines, then there seems to be a sense of 'order of importance' created by the end of this poem. The ones who 'serve Him(God) best/best bear His mild yoke,' will in a sense be the same ones who also serve 'who only stand and wait(Milton).'
If this is the case, then the question of 'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied' becomes answerable: No. The importance of 'serving God' in the blind state becomes more 'important' than serving God while not blind. The consideration is done.
But I must admit, the vagueness of who is who is what leaves me unsure.
Wow, I never realized that "who-they" formulation echoes. Actually "they" in the first occurence is redundant. Sentence could have stood as "who best serve His mild yoke serve him best." Why the added "they"? I guess syllables and rhythm, but also the echo. This also adds to the power of the concluding line.
Also noticing the repetitions. "Light" of course throughout the poem, but "best" within the very same sentence, "who-they" as I describe above, and "serve".
I thought about it some more.
Yes, but don't forget the word 'bear.' 'Who best bear His mild yoke serve Him best'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
The ones who best serve Him are the ones who best bear His mild yoke. Who are these 'they'? The image is of an oxen yoked by a wooden frame would have to lead me to think that the they is referring to the day labourers. How else could an oxen work if it did not have light?
'They also serve who only stand and wait'.
But then who are the they here? It has to be the same they as above because of the phrase 'also serve,' which indicates 'in addition to'. But who is the who referring to here? If it's God, then you have this weird comparison where just like God, Milton(blinded) is standing still while the ones who can see are like oxens labouring(spending their light) to serve God, and in a weird sense, Milton.
But I think the importance of this work(day-labour) towards serving God is undercut by Patience saying,' God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best'. Which is to say, at best, this type of serving God, even though are the ones who serve Him best, is at best "bearing his mild(almost least laborious demands) yoke'".
So in a way, as Virgil pointed out, it doesn't seem like the importance of serving God requires the sense of seeing. But then that last line makes me imagine Milton as this person who 'stands still and waits,' and I get a sense that he's elevated himself as far as the proper way to serve God-which seems to be just whole-heartedly believing-and has very little to do with considering how one's light is spent.
edit: I just thought of something about the poem relating to the word 'consider' and the overall theme of this poem. What if 'consider' was in terms of considered importance? Then what I get out of this poem is that what we consider important, as far as serving God to have a place in the 'light' when we pass from this world, is considered not worthy at all from the scriptures portrayal. Maybe that something considered of worth 'in God's eyes' is not something laborious(in the physical sense) at all.
Yes, that's the image but I think God's yoke applies to everyone; it's universal.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
That works for me.Quote:
edit: I just thought of something about the poem relating to the word 'consider' and the overall theme of this poem. What if 'consider' was in terms of considered importance? Then what I get out of this poem is that what we consider important, as far as serving God to have a place in the 'light' when we pass from this world, is considered not worthy at all from the scriptures portrayal. Maybe that something considered of worth 'in God's eyes' is not something laborious(in the physical sense) at all