Essay Questions

From a very young age, Milton is preoccupied with the passing of time, and with death. What are some examples of this preoccupation in his sonnets?

The passing of time is one of the themes of Milton's sonnets, and also one of the main preoccupations in his life away from writing. One of the main examples of this is in Sonnet VII, as the narrator (Milton) contemplates his impending birthday, when he will be turning the ripe old age of twenty-three. He reflects on how he got to this point in his life, and what this new age means; no longer a boy, hardly even a youth, but definitely a young man, and this new "man" status is causing him to ponder what being a man actually means.

He then begins to think about how quickly the rest of his life will fly by too, and that with each passing day he is getting closer to death. Despite the fact that he is at an age when very few young men really think in the long term, and an age at which young people still feel immortal, he is already conscious of the passing of time, and the fact that he is aging by the hour.

Milton was a scholar of the scriptures, and a devoted theologian. How does this devotion to his religion manifest itself in his sonnets?

From childhood, Milton was a religious boy and this devotion to the scriptures is evident in his sonnets, as in all of his works. In Sonnet VII, as he ponders the passing of time, he also comes to the conclusion that the only way to live his life is in the service of God. Time is fleeting and limited, but it should be spent in devotion, and in the most meaningful way possible.

In Sonnet XIX, he bemoans the fact that he is not able to actively serve God, because he is blind. This disability is preventing him from using his talents to the full, and for fulfilling what he believes is his purpose; however, after a conversation with a character called "Patience" he comes to realize that there are many ways in which to serve God, and sometimes by opening one's heart to receiving God, and waiting for Him, are just as important as actively serving.

What is Milton's conversation with Patience a metaphor for?

As Milton is distressed because of his blindness that is preventing him from serving God in the way in which he feels he is both duty bound and ethically compelled, he has a conversation with a character called "Patience". This character and conversation is metaphorical; Milton is not having a conversation with an outside character, but rather is engaging in thought about his situation, and coming to the conclusion that if he is patient, he will still be able to serve God by waiting for Him, and waiting for God to let him know what his plan is. Patience is not a character as much as a representation of an attribute that it is important to have. It is actually one of the virtues that Milton strives for and he realizes in this conversation that he needs to rely on this virtue rather than bemoaning his inability to continue serving God the same way he did when he had his sight.