1. Word association: What does this image make you think of?
The theme of…
Word association: What does this image make you think of?

2. What do you know about sonnets?
The sonnet form…
What do you know about sonnets?
Metre?
Rhyme scheme?
Structure?
Changes in form?
Other?

3. What do you know about sonnets?
The sonnet form…
What do you know about sonnets?
Italian poet, Petrarch, made the form popular.
14 lines long.
Typically divided in to the first 8 lines, octave, and the last 6, sestet (usually with different rhyme schemes to show the change).
Usually include a ‘volta’, or a turn in the argument.
Iambic pentameter (10, unstress, stress).

4. Learning Objective: To EVALUATE the literary and linguistic features in ‘Sonnet XIX.’
Learning Outcome: To COMPARE and CONTRAST the themes with another poem from the anthology.

5. What can I infer?
What do know?
What can I see?
Challenge table 1

6. Beginnings
The story starts on December 9th 1608 (the same decade as the accession of James I, and the first performances of Shakespeare's King Lear and Jonson's Volpone), when our protagonist was born in Bread Street, London. Despite having been disinherited by his Catholic father for vigorously embracing Protestantism, he was able to provide a very good education for his son, sending him to St. Paul's School and employing a string of private tutors. From a young age our poet showed a strong interest in and talent for academic subjects, particularly languages, and from the age of twelve he regularly stayed up past midnight to study.
University Years
In 1625, at the age of sixteen, Milton started his Cambridge. It seems he was a bit of an outsider. He was nicknamed the 'Lady of Christ's' for his effeminate ways and youthful looks.
Christ's College, Cambridge, where Milton studied from In poems and exercises written during Milton's time at Cambridge, we see the seeds of poetic ambition germinating, and witness his growing interest in the English language and the service to which it could be put. In this time he wrote a number of notable short poems including 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso'. His poem 'On Shakespeare' was published in the second folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1632, the year he graduated from Cambridge with his MA.
Poetic Apprenticeship
Milton then spent a period of time at his father's home in Hammersmith (and later Horton) in private study - what has now been deemed his poetic apprenticeship. This period of time may seem uneventful, but it is interesting that while Milton felt he was destined for greatness, he had the maturity to see that he wasn't ready to compose a masterwork just yet.
However, Milton was also the kind of person who could not just turn his back on civil injustice. He put his own creative ambitions on hold to focus on prose - as he called it, the work of his left hand - devoting himself to the betterment of his country by propagating his unorthodox belief in liberty.
Context

7. Context Controversy - Divorce and Free Speech
He first became involved in religious dispute on the Presbyterian side by writing a series of pamphlets in His views here are very Puritan and call for the suppression of the Catholic idolatry that he and others felt was increasingly present in the Church of England. At this stage Milton hadn't rejected monarchism, and he believed that the bishops were a threat to England and to the king.
In 1642 Milton married the seventeen-year-old Mary Powell, a girl from an unintellectual, royalist family. After a few weeks she went to visit her family and didn't return. It has been suggested that the outbreak of the first civil war, which initially went Charles I's way, may have made the Powells reluctant to favour their troublesome reformist son-in-law. These difficulties prompted Milton to write a petition in favour of divorce on the grounds of incompatibility (at the time divorce was only granted on grounds of adultery). Although Milton was motivated by a very high and pure ideal of marriage as an intellectual union, he was publicly attacked on all sides for libertinism.
Later in the 1640s, Milton, who was working as a private tutor, became reconciled with his wife and she bore him a number of children. His home life at this time was not particularly content; a number of Mary's family moved in with the Miltons, creating a noisy atmosphere which was not particularly conducive to study or writing. As well as the pamphlets, Milton was also working on a history of Britain, and in 1646 he published a collection of his poetic works to date entitled Poems (this is dated 1645 in the old style).
Republicanism
Two weeks after the execution of Charles I in 1649, Milton committed himself to the Republican side by publishing The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates in support of the regicide. His argument was that a monarch's power is not absolute, but derived from the people he rules and held in accordance with a social contract. If a monarch breaks this contract by abusing his position, the people have the right to remove him from power. A few months later, Milton was appointed Secretary of Foreign Tongues to the Council of State; it was his job to translate documents and to write defences of the Commonwealth against Royalist attacks.
Context

8. By the end of 1651, Milton's sight, which had been deteriorating since 1644, failed him completely. He was 43, blind, and with his great work still yet to be written. Despite these misfortunes he persevered with his secretarial duties until 1659, and published his last major pamphlet in It was a brave anti-monarchical protest in the face of the coming Restoration, which also expresses a feeling of despair at seeing his countrymen so eager to run back to servitude.
When Charles II assumed control of the country in 1660, Milton was in serious trouble. A number of Commonwealth leaders were imprisoned or executed, with some choosing to flee abroad for safety. Milton's friends hid him throughout the summer so he escaped immediate arrest, but his books were burnt and in parliament his name was proposed for exclusion from the Act of Pardon to be passed in August. Through the work of friends in high places, Milton wasn't excluded in the end, although he was arrested and held in custody for some months. It is popularly held that the invocation to Book VII of Paradise Lost, which talks of his 'mortal voice, unchanged' in spite of 'evil days' and 'dangers compassed round' (23-27), was written at, or perhaps in memory of, this time.
Later Years and Paradise Lost
Mary Powell died in 1652 and by 1656 Milton had married again, this time more happily. However his wife, Katherine Woodcock, died just two years later; she is the subject of the poignant 'Sonnet 23'. He married for the third time in Milton did not get on very well with his daughters, who were not academic and resented the schooling their father put them to. They stole from him and sold off portions of his library.
Milton began work on Paradise Lost at some point in the mid 1650s. It was composed orally by dictation to an amanuensis (or scribe) over the next decade, and was published in Despite Milton's unfortunate political reputation and the lack of serious interest in his previous poetic efforts, the epic was instantly recognized as a work of outstanding merit. These later years were spent in poetic endeavour. Paradise Lost was revised for the second edition in 1674, an enlarged edition of the Poems was published in 1673, and Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, probably written in the 1660s, were published in 1671 or 70.
Context

9. On His Blindness
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, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; "Doth God exact day labour, light denied?" 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. 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.”

10. When – what is the tone?
Cause and effect?
What is he referring to when he says ‘light is spent’?
Foregrounded conjunction
Metaphor
When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
Adjectives
‘Ere’ means before…
Alliteration : ‘d’ and ‘w’
Why these adjectives?
What is he trying to convey?
What sounds do these create?

11. And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless,
You can read Matthew 25 but here's a brief summary of "The Parable of Talents.
" A lord gives three of his servants some money ("talents") to hold on to when he leaves for a trip. Two of the servants use the money to gain more money for their master. (In contemporary language, we'd call this 'investment.') But the third servant just buries the money, the ancient equivalent of hiding it under your mattress. When the lord returns, he's happy with the first two servants and gives them more responsibilities, but furious with the third servant. He exiles the third servant into the "darkness," which is the equivalent of "death."
When Milton says that talent is "death to hide," he is referring to the money in the Biblical story and also to his own "talent," in the sense of a skill or trade.
There is no way to tell what specific talent he means, but it probably would be his intelligence and his writing and reading skills, which he had used in service of Oliver Cromwell's government. This "talent" is "lodged" or buried within the speaker just like the money in the story. It cannot be used to make greater profit.
If he doesn’t use his ‘talent’, it will lead to death?
What is a talent?
Abstract noun
And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless,
Syntax
Is there anything significant about the order of the words in this part of the line?

12. What does the word though tell is about his thoughts?
Conjunction
Adjective - bent
[…] though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide,
Proper noun? Capital letter?
What is his ‘true account’?
Verb
To chide means…

13. “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask.
What tone is created through the repetition of the ‘d’ sound?
What is God compared to?
Punctuation – why does he use speech marks?
Alliteration
Metaphor
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask.
Punctuation – the first full stop of the poem appears here.
Adverb
Fondly = foolishly
Why does he use this word?

14. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies:
Compare to previous, when, what is the effect of this conjunction?
Why is personification used?
Conjunction
Proper noun?
But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies:
Effect of the noun ‘murmur’?

15. Speech marks?
[…] “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
Pre-modifying adjective
Noun

16. His state Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed
Metaphor
Is this hyperbole?
Is truth?

17. Why is it ‘without’ rest?
Nouns
Preposition
And post o’er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Verb
What does ‘stand and wait’ tell us?
Why those passive verbs?
Why this word?
How does it connect to the rest of the poem?

18. Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet in Iambic Pentameter
Milton loved the classics, and in the 17th century, "classic" meant anything associated with Ancient Greece or Rome. The heart of the Roman Empire was located in what is now modern-day Italy, and the sonnet was invented in Italy, so it was not a surprise that Milton would favour the original Italian form of the sonnet. This form is divided up into an octave and sestet. Shakespeare, on the other hand, used a sonnet form that ended with a rhyming two-line couplet.
The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is ABBAABBA CDECDE.
Unlike a classic Italian sonnet, this does not divide cleanly into eight lines and six lines, however. The first section of the poem consists of the speaker trying to frame his foolish question, and the second consists of the response to the question by a figure named "patience." Most Italian sonnets have a sharp thematic turn or "volta" between the two sections, but in this poem the turn is a bit muddled between lines 8 and 9. If you think about it, the confusion makes perfect sense, as it conveys the awkwardness of someone (patience) interrupting someone else (the speaker) before the speaker can say something stupid. The meter of the poem is classic iambic pentameter, with five iambs (an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable). Some of the lines do not fit the pattern exactly, but the pattern itself is clear:
        When I | con SID | er HOW.| my LIFE | is SPENT       
Ere HALF | my DAYS | in THIS | dark WORLD.| and WIDE
Form and Structure

19. Syntax Walking on eggshells:
The speaker buries the interrogative climax of the first part of the poem – the question of whether God demands "day-labour, light denied" – inside all these other delicate expressions of why light is so important to him.
The poem has a lot of short phrases separated by commas and is full of caesuras and which seemingly bring us further and further from the point, as if Milton is worried that the whole sonnet might crack open into a steaming mass of resentment. It's like if you had a classmate who said, "When I think about how my pencil just broke, I can't finish my Maths question, and I like Maths so much, but you really need a rubber to do it, or else you might be stuck with a wrong answer, which would lead to a bad grade; 'Can I borrow a pencil?' I would want to ask you." Just ask for the flaming pencil! However, when we consider that the speaker is about to talk to God, we can understand his desire to be cautious. The decision to questioning God's judgment is not to be taken lightly. The speaker is so cautious that he says, "I fondly ask" after he asks the question, which serves to take the sting of arrogance and insubordination out of it. Put another way, the time it takes you as reader to figure out what the speaker is trying to get across lessens the direct force of his statements. "Patience," by contrast, is more direct. It uses shorter, more declarative sentences like, "His state is kingly." Because they are making complex arguments, both the speaker and "patience" use frequent enjambment, where one lines carries over into the next without a pause. This gives the poem a prose-like and slightly evasive sound (the eggshell thing, again). The entire poem builds to the final line, which does not carry over from the previous line and sounds remarkably clear and straightforward: "They also serve who only stand and wait." And we breathe a sigh of relief that the speaker has managed to hold things together until the end.
Syntax

20. In the octave, the speaker’s question, a lexical field of finance (spent; talent (a unit of money in Biblical times); account) echoes the Parable of the Talents and Milton’s guilt that he has not made the most of his talent.
In the sestet, Patience’s reply, the lexical field is one of servitude (work; yoke; serve; kingly; bidding; serve) to describe God’s position and role.
The abstract noun ‘death’ in line three hyperbolically suggests the guilt that the speaker feels at not using his talents.
The use of the adverb ‘fondly’ (an archaism for foolishly) to describe the speaker’s question create the impression that he is nervous about daring to question God.
Lexis

21. Imagery Metaphor - Personification
Line 1: Milton is using a metaphor to compare his vision to a light source that could run out, like an old-fashioned lamp that burns through its oil.
Line 2: "Ere half my days" is a way of saying, "Before my life is through." But "days" also introduces the idea of daylight. The speaker's "days" are now more like nights. He uses another metaphor to compare his lack of vision to an imagined world that does not have light and sound unfriendly and dangerous.
Line 7: The speaker compares God – again using metaphor – to a master who makes his servants work (day-labour) in darkness. He "denies" them light, which sounds heartless.
Personification
Line 8: The virtue of patience is personified as "patience," the amazing advice giver. In the second half of the poem, patience replies to the speaker's question. Patience is an important virtue in Christianity. It allows people to work toward other "theological" virtues like hope and faith. When the speaker begins to question whether God might be kind of a cruel figure for demanding work from people who can't perform it, patience steps in to correct him. The twist, of course, is that the speaker must already have patience in order for the personified figure called "patience" to come on the scene.
Imagery

22. Imagery Metaphor: Pun:
Line 11: The metaphor in the first half of this line compares God's rule over men to the wooden yoke that guides farm animals.
Lines 12-13: These lines present an image of servants rushing all over the world, by land and by sea, to serve God. These "servants" are Christian soldiers, merchants, politicians, clergy, etc. Lines form an extended metaphor comparing service to God with service to the most powerful king in the world.
Pun:
Line 14: The word "wait" is a pun. It means "wait" in the sense that the speaker will wait until the end of his life to meet his ultimate fate, and also in the sense that a person "waits" on a more powerful person simply by standing there until he is needed.
Imagery

23. Solid alliteration of ‘d’ creates a sombre tone
Alliteration of ‘w’ (hard to form with the mouth) slows the pace and echoes the nervousness of the speaker to get to his point
On His Blindness
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, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; "Doth God exact day labour, light denied?" 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. 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.”
Sound
Alliteration on ‘p’ is energetic and reflects Patience jumping in to prevent the speaker asking the question
Plosive alliteration is forceful and confident – reflecting Patience’s standing