John Milton's “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” is a reflection on the author's blindness. Milton uses light to symbolize sight in line one of his poem and in the title:
“When I consider how my light is spent”(Milton, 1). He utilizes iambic pentameter and an AB, AB, rhyme style to lend his poem a natural feel. Milton also uses an allusion to a Biblical passage found in the book of Matthew to illustrate a very real concern that appears to plagues his thoughts through the poem - lines 1-6 . The poet is looking back on his life and in his eyes, he has not served his purpose. The stanza above reeks of fear and haste. Milton feels that he doesn't have many days left. This is shown in the poet's words, “Ere half my days” (Milton, 2). Milton uses strong diction like “death” “hide” “lodged” “soul” and “bent” to create a sense of haste and desperation. Milton has decided not to add any punctuation between 3 - 5 lines. By making these lines one thought, Milton shouts through the poem that this is the most important part of his message. No other part of the poem lacks punctuation like these do. His message is made clear through the allusion. The story in Matthew goes that a master left his servants with some money. Two servants invested the money in good faith that they would receive more money for their master and one servant hid it in fear. When the master returned, he praised the two servants who invested his gift and rebuked the one who did not. In fact, he sentenced the one who did not invest his gift to a lifetime of punishment. The master did not give the gift for the servants alone to benefit from, he gave it so that those around the servants would benefit too. Milton seems to believe this. Milton doesn't want to be an unfaithful servant. He believes that his talent is poetry. He is afraid of hearing his maker “chide(złajać; zbesztać;) “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”(Milton, 6-7) alluding to another Biblical passage (vineyard keeper parable). In the last lines, the tone switches slightly. Milton feels that his gift is inferior to some that may be more “active” in their missions.
The lines 9-14 - Milton uses flashy diction to bring his message home. Words like “gifts”, “best”, “state”, “kingly”, “thousands”, “bidding”, and “serve” create a sense of something wonderful. Milton uses these words to describe how God has thousands of servants ready to run and do His bidding. The last line IS much quieter and therefore much sweeter, “They also serve who only stand and wait”(Milton, 14). His message: standing still and waiting for an order is just as important as obeying it. This could mean that Milton is still waiting for his “gift”. Ironically, by writing this poem, he has found it. His gift was poetry to the world, the fact that people around the world can read it, means that he invested his talent. Now he need not fear hearing, “depart from me, I never knew you.”
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
Perhaps one of the greatest of the English poets, certainly one of the most original. Blake is known to most people as the author of the Song of Innocence and such poems as ` Tiger, Tiger, burning bright'. But his achievement is massive and his aim is immense. He wished, using the twins arts of poetry and drawing, to build up a huge mythology of his own, which should portray symbolically the forces always at war with each other in the soul of man. His great poems-The Book of Milton, Jerusalem- are epics hard to understand until one has found the clues: we have the giant Los, standing for the human imagination, and his opposite, Urizen, who represents the repressive power of law and reason; we have all their vast battles- the final impression being not unlike that of the Malayan shadow- play, where gods and goddlesses swim into the screen and and we hear a strange mystical language from the hidden showmaster. But Blake's powers and gods are solid and huge and sometimes frightening. Blake's philosophy- has a simple enough basis: he rejects reason and conventional religion, and says that mankind can be fullfilled only through the senses and the imagination. His The Marriage of Heaven and Hell turns the existing 18th century world upside-down. God who stands for reason and repression, is set against Satan, who stands for energy and freedom. In Hell (the world of creation & energy) we learn astonishing new truths: `The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'; `Prisons are built with stones of law, Brothels with bricks of religion'; `Damn braces. Bless relaxes'. Blake wants every human being to cultivate the imagination to such an extent that it will be capable of perceiving ultimate truth without any help from reason; reason in fact, is dangerous, so is science; if we al live in a state of unfettered individual freedom, unconcerned with laws, relying on the power of insight and, on a lower level, instinct, we shall achieve that heaven on earth which Blake calls `Jerusalem' in the Preface to his Milton.
Blake's short poems are always remarkable, always highly individual. At their best, they are forceful indictments of the repressions that he spent his life fighting against- the repressions of law, religion, and science. Some may still beileve he was another of the 18th c. madmen; to me his madness looks very much like sanity.
Aesthetic judgement is to see through the eye (eye of imagination) - not hith the eye.
1757 Edmund Burke writes The Inquiry into the ideas of the Sublime & Beautiful.
Immanuel Kant- mentioned these two terms (S&B) ; great predecesor for W.Blake
“The Critique of Fudgement”- I.Kant
The Sublime- is that which is horrifying, terrifying, terror-striking, lofly, immense, awesome.
It is palpable. What is sublime is romantic.
The Tyger (this tyger who is sublime.
Beautiful- which appeals to our eyes, aesthically pleasant, handsome. What is classical is healthy.
Blake is overwhelmed by God, he is visited by spirit all the time.
deity/dity-boskość
Blake was never a popular writer and had to wait till the end of the 19th century for a fuller appreciation. In spite of all efforts of his commentators most of his work remains difficult to grasp, but his Songs of Innocence and Experience are still widely read and make an important contribution to European Romantic literature.
FROM SONGS OF INNOCENCE
Introduction
The poet explains the origin of his songs as a suggestion given him by a child he saw on a cloud (1.3). This points to the divine nature of the child. Cherub-like creatures in the sky often appear in Blake's engravings. This connection of infancy with heaven and God is further strenghtened by the other the boy gives the poet to sing about the Lamb, the symbol of Jesus. Here, however, the Lamb reminds us not of Christ's sacrifice and passion but of His innocence which is the source of joy.
This is made clear by the word “cheer” repeated in 1.6 and 10. The child “wept” when the “piper” fulfilled his wish but his tears are the sign of excessive joy, not of sorrow.
The last two stanzas contain the romantic image of the prophet who has visions which he imparts to people in the simple way symbolized by his “rural pen” and “the water clear” which serves as ink.
The Lamb
In this poem the Lamb becomes the central symbolic image and again the association is not with Christ's sacrifice but with His innocence, tenderness and love. What the identification with Christ means here is that the state of innocence is a divine state and the vision seen by the child is a divine version. Another more obvious association- with the Lamb as an animal- reveals Blake's organic view of the world. The child who speaks toit feels it is the same being as he (1.17), he feels his unity with Nature. The world in which both the child and the lamb live is secure, protected by God.
The answers to the questions in the first stanza are simple and the child does not hesitate to give them. The whole world is full of joy and tenderness. The tender voice of the lamb is echoed by all the vales.(1.7-8)
Tyger
This is perhaps the best known of Blake's poems. Many critics have interpreted it in different ways. In contrast to the mild Lamb the Tiger presents the fierce and terrifying side of Nature. But the meaning of the poem is far more complex. Blake's unusual spelling of the word tiger-Tyger- emphasizes its symbolic implications. The central metaphor in its description is fire (1.6,8) and other images are also related to fire (1.1,14). Fire usually signifies passion and its consuming destructive power. Blake's prophetic books show, however, that for him fire was the symbol fo anger and meant not only a destructive force but also the creative power of God. Three quotations from his Proverbs of Hell will mark his idea clear: “The Wrath of the Lion is the Wisdom of God.” “The roaring of the lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man”. “The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instructions”. Thus the fierce passion embodied in the “Tyger” is the power which transforms the universe. The forests of the night in which the tyger is burning were Blake's symbols for experience which suppresses imagination and corrupts innocence. What was thus lost will in a different way be restored to the universe by the fierce passion embodied in the tyger. But in the forests of the night usually stand for ignorance and oppression. If we accept this meaning of the symbol the tiger can be seen as a rebel fighting against the conservative world. And in this glorifivation Blake is a true romantic.
The creation of the Lamb was a simple act: God just made it, gave it a tender voice and clothing. The creation of the tiger is an astounding process beyond humancomprehension. Stanzas 2,3,4 describe its gradual stages: eyes, heart, and brain. This fierce aspect of life seems to be much more deeply integrated in the cosmos than the Lamb's meekness (1.5), and it also impresses with the peculiar beauty, perfect in its “symmetry” yet avoking fear (1.4).
The questions asked in each stanza remain- unlike the Lamb- without answers; they are meant to express awe and admiration for the aspect the Universe revealed by the tiger, and a sense of mystery which cannot be explained. On the other hand it should be remembered that in the 18th c. questions marks were often used for exclamations as well as for questions.
Thr rhythm of the poem, the incomplete questions (1. 12,13,15) convey the impression of strength and violence.
Variously as the theme of the Tiger has been stated, what the imagery certainly reveals is the dialectical synthesis: fierceness and destructive forces are needed in the universe together with mildness, so that the ultimate harmont, the “fearful symmetry” (1.4), can be achieved.