Milton! I hath great need of thee this day...

LONDON, 1802.

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In chearful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on itself did lay.

--Wordswoth

Whenever I am downtrodden or disappointed or stressed, this poem echoes in my mind--especially in times like these as I painfully trudge through my writing sample and meet writer’s block at every sentence (Whilst studying for our comprehensive exams, Milton! became a sort of battle cry).  Even though it is a poem by Wordsworth, I have found it inspiring because it reminds me of Milton, his profound affect on western literature and just his general greatness. I have a severe case of author worship when it comes to Milton--for which I have already been laughed at and berated by plenty. (Just yesterday, in fact, someone responded to my love of him by saying Milton would be horrified that I wanted to get a PhD and laughed at my rather lame defense of him--But, really I don’t get why people are always getting on about Milton being a sexist. It’s not as if Shakespeare was a feminist crusader!).  

The reason for my worship and awe extends beyond his ability of pen to the strength of his convictions and his work ethic. Nothing derailed him. Even after the cause which he fought for his whole life failed, leaving him hated and blind, he wrote the greatest English epic. A champion of democracy and free speech, he resonates with the American spirit of “can”. One only has to read Areopagitica (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/index.shtml) to see his beauty of the language mixed with the power of his ideas:

“For books are not absolutely dead things, but... do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unless warriors be used, as good almost kill a Man a good Book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills Reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.” (John Milton, Areopagitica)

Not many look at him as a source of inspiration, but whenever I feel that moment of defeat, I think about the defeat Milton must have felt when the monarchy was reinstated and the country was calling his blindness a punishment from God. I don’t just think about the intelligence and talent it took to write Paradise Lost, I think about why he wrote it and what he felt while he created his masterpiece. I am probably over-sentimentalizing the poem’s creation, but the first time I read Paradise Lost as a college Sophomore, I couldn’t help but feel more than analyze (that came with my second and third readings). My professor at the time said it was the perfect poem for the college student at a crossroads; the turmoil of change and personal confusion manifests in the poem.  Bubbling under the poem’s surface, spiritual confusion and defeat constantly threaten the poem’s thesis of justifying the ways of God to man. Although Milton is most definitely not of the devil’s party as Blake would like us to believe, I still can’t help but feel sorry for Satan when he returns to hell “victorious” but monstrously transformed listening to hisses rather than applause. Feeling like all you’ve worked so hard for has been for nothing is just so human and so real. And, that is why I have always loved Milton’s work in general--most of it is teeming with uncertainty and passion though one expects it to be a stable statement of his faith.  His work is at once inspiring but also is reminiscent of our own uncertainty; hopeful but also suspicious of hope. 

Although I have seen and discussed many readings of the sonnet he wrote on his blindness, I have always read it as the epitome of his uncertainty. He ends the poem apparently hopeful that he can still serve God, but the bitter disappointment he feels threatens his contentment. I have always read it that he is more questioning his condition than most.... 

On His Blindness

  

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

  E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,

  And that one Talent which is death to hide,

  Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

         5

  My true account, least he returning chide,

  Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,

  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

  10

  Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

  And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:

  They also serve who only stand and waite

Basically, just talking about Milton invigorates me, and I hope people can find him more approachable. It seems like many non-early modernists envision him as a grumpy old prudish white man. But I think that his writing is far from stale; it is full of anxiety and inspiration--his work illustrates and explores the complexity and hardships of the human condition still relevant to a modern audience, though it is deeply religious. I find his prose especially fitting for the current political climate. And, his life and work often remind me to not let feelings of defeat overtake me, to ignore the naysayers, and to continue working.