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Assignment 1 Season Come to Pass: On His Blindness “On His Blindness” is a petrarchan sonnet, a lyric poem with fourteen lines. The rhyme scheme is as follows {ABBA, ABBA}-Octet, {CDE, CDE}-Sestet. The rhyming scheme is used because the poet is speaking to the reader about how his blindness prevents him from serving God as much as he wishes. The first eight lines which is an Octave present a theme: God judges humans on whether they labour or him to the best of his/her ability e.g. Pastor A preaches the word of God to a congregation on 2000 people and Pastor B preaches to a congregation of 20 people but they both pray and serve God equally. If one of the Pastor A becomes ill and can no longer preach the word of God he will still remain worthy in the sight of God. For as Milton says in the last line of the poem “they also serve who stand and wait” The last two-line conclusion is an octave. In the first part of the poem Milton laments his blindness as God has taken away one thing and he won’t be able to use that talent. He wrote his poem when he was blind. At 43 he went blind. God gives you talents to his/her ability. To not use this talent “hide” is like death, line 3 “death to hide” meaning its useless. He goes on to say the even thou he is blind he will still praise God, “thou my soul more bent” “To serve therewith my Make, and present” The poet compares his soul to his mind. In the first half Milton use negative words “dark, death, useless” to enforce the fact that he is blind and talks about his feelings. The second half he realizes that to serve God is much more meaningful than to complain. He don’t want to pity himself. The murmur to prevent that negativity the voice who he refers to as “Patience” tells him God doesn’t need you “God doth not need” or your gifts “either man’s work, or his own gifts” for even those that can’t carry their heavy “yoke” problems, they still serve him best “they serve him best” therefore he will also serve God. “When I consider how my light is spent”, Ere half my days, In this dark world and wide” In these lines there is a lexical set of light and dark. This lexical set helps the poet convey his blindness. The light mentioned refers to the light of day. The light connects with his blindness. This presents a double meaning “light spent” How I spent my days and how it is that my sight is used up. The 1st connotation is darkness, his inner being, he can still serve God. Bear his mild yoke” mild is light, yoke is heavy, he doesn’t see that yoke as heavy but light therefore he uses the word mild. The light he refers to is the light he sees when he is looking up to God. First he has a vision of himself of being useless in line 4 of the poem “lodged me useless” where he cannot see the way forward but now he sees light and the light he sees is to serve God. The significance of using the word light is that it’s the opposite of darkness where in this case darkness is associated with his blindness. In line 1 he could also mean that when he looks back in the days before he could go blind or if he was not blind he could think about all he spent, or could spend in light meaning when he could see. In line 7 “light denied” he could be asking God why you denied me the right to see, therefore the question mark at the end. In brief the image is that God has given people talents. Some develop them to the best of ability and some people are afraid, they bury their talent “And that one talent which is death to hide”. In lines 3 to 6 of the poem it alludes to the “Parable of Talents” in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, verses 14 to 30. Its indicated in the bible that an employer who is going away for a time gives his 3 servants money in proportion to their ability to increase its value. He shares the money in talents, in ancient times they used a unit of weight to establish the value of gold or silver, etc. E.g the Roman might pay 5 talents of gold for military supplies or 1 talents of silver for a quantity of food. In the “Parable of Talents” the employer gives the 1st servant 5 talents of silver, the 2nd 2 talents, and the 3rd 1 talent. When the employer returns from his trip he asks the servants for the results, the 1st says he has doubled his talents to 10 and the 2nd doubled his to 4. There were both then promoted. The 3rd servant however still has 1 talent, he did nothing with it to increase its value, and instead he buried it as mentioned in the poem. The employer then denounces him for his laziness, takes his talent away and gives it to the man with 10. He then casts him outside into darkness. When you bury your talent it goes no way, what are you without talents' We may discover it too late but in the poem Milton discovers his talent early. He did not bury it, he used it. His talent was to write poetry and to serve God. Milton turns the tension of being blind into a positive by seeking for himself a truth or reason from blindness. By exploring his own emotional response to his future, in seeking comfort from the scripture regarding the role that blind people have served in spreading the Word of God. He appears to understand that it is not what this world perceives a person to be or does which establishes their value to God, but the very fact that they serve as part of Gods creation which is loved and they therefore need to love in the similar fashion. A yoke is something that is heavy yet it’s describes as a mild yoke in the poem. It is terrible to be blind but he can still write poetry and praise God. Although such a dreadful thing has happened to him, he won’t not see it in that way, he rather see it as a mild problem. Milton uses these words “mild” and “yoke” as another reference to Jesus and again this denotes Milton’s deeper understanding of Christ’s gentle disposition joined in the union of servitude towards mankind and his invitation to join the world’s salvation. In the bible verses 11:30 it says “for my yolk is easy, and my burden is light” Milton realizes God, her decides to continue to serve God. He doesn’t need to be on his own, he can always talk to God. He develops a relationship with God. He takes this yolk and turns it into something light. He realizes that people who are most affected by things, the poor, dying, etc are more easily accepted by God and can relate to God. With their yolks they stand and wait for God to give them direction. First tone of resentment and then Milton realizes despite his blindness you will be able to figuratively see the truth of your life by considering the Now and Then. He is first angry and frustrated, defeated useless, insecure of himself. Then a positive tone comes along, where he goes on to say that he will serve God regardless of him being blind. He becomes more accepting, less angry, more understanding about his condition, more determined.