Kubla Khan summary and analysis

Kubla Khan





The Poem
“Kubla Khan,” one of the most famous and most analyzed English poems, is a fifty-four-line lyric in three
verse paragraphs. In the opening paragraph, the title character decrees that a “stately pleasure-dome” be built
in Xanadu. Although numerous commentators have striven to find sources for the place names used here by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, there is no critical consensus about the origins or meanings of these names. The
real-life Kubla Khan, a thirteenth century Mongolian general and statesman who conquered and unified
China, lived in an elaborate residence known as K’ai-p’ing, or Shang-tu, in southeastern Mongolia.
Coleridge’s Kubla has his palace constructed where Alph, “the sacred river,” begins its journey to the sea.
The construction of the palace on “twice five miles of fertile ground” is described. It is surrounded by walls
and towers within which are ancient forests and ornate gardens “bright with sinuous rills.”
Xanadu is described more romantically in the second stanza. It becomes “A savage place! as holy and
enchanted/ As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted/ By woman wailing for her demon-lover!” It is
inhabited not by Kubla’s family and followers, but by images from Coleridge’s imagination. His Xanadu is a
magical place where the unusual is to be expected, as when a “mighty fountain” bursts from the earth,
sending “dancing rocks” into the air, followed by the sacred river itself. The poem has thus progressed from
the creations of Kubla Khan to the even more magical actions of nature. The river meanders for five miles
until it reaches “caverns measureless to man” and sinks “in tumult to a lifeless ocean.”
This intricate description is interrupted briefly when Kubla hears “from far/ Ancestral voices prophesying
war!” This may be an allusion to the opposition of the real Khan by his younger brother, Arigböge, which led
eventually to a military victory for Kubla. Coleridge then shifts the focus back to the pleasure-dome, with its
shadow floating on the waves of the river: “It was a miracle of rare device,/ A sunny pleasure-dome with
caves of ice!”
The final paragraph presents a first-person narrator who recounts a vision he once had of an Abyssinian maid
playing a dulcimer and singing of Mount Abora. The narrator says that if he could revive her music within
himself, he would build a pleasure-dome, and all who would see it would be frightened of “his flashing eyes,
his floating hair!” His observers would close their eyes “with holy dread,/ For he on honey-dew hath fed,/
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”
Coleridge prefaces the poem with an explanation of how what he calls a “psychological curiosity” came to be
published. According to Coleridge, he was living in ill health during the summer of 1797 in a “lonely
farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire.” Having taken
an “anodyne,” he fell asleep immediately upon reading in a seventeenth century travel book by Samuel
Purchas: “Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten
miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.” He claims that while sleeping for three hours he composed
two-hundred to three-hundred lines, “if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up
before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or
consciousness of effort.”


When Coleridge awoke, he remembered the entire poem and set about copying it down, only to be interrupted
for an hour “by a person on business from Porlock.” Returning to the poem, Coleridge could recall only
“some eight or ten scattered lines and images.” He claims he has since intended to finish “Kubla Khan” but
has not yet been able to.
Forms and Devices
The most striking of the many poetic devices in “Kubla Khan” are its sounds and images. One of the most
musical of poems, it is full of assonance and alliteration, as can be seen in the opening five lines:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
This repetition of a, e, and u sounds continues throughout the poem with the a sounds dominating, creating a
vivid yet mournful song appropriate for one intended to inspire its listeners to cry “Beware! Beware!” in their
awe of the poet. The halting assonance in the line “As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing” creates
the effect of breathing.
The alliteration is especially prevalent in the opening lines, as each line closes with it: “Kubla Khan,”
“pleasure-dome decree,” “river, ran,” “measureless to man,” and “sunless sea.” The effect is almost to
hypnotize the reader or listener into being receptive to the marvelous visions about to appear. Other notable
uses of alliteration include the juxtaposition of “waning” and “woman wailing” to create a wailing sound.
“Five miles meandering with a mazy motion” sounds like the movement it describes. The repetition of the
initial h and d sounds in the closing lines creates an image of the narrator as haunted and doomed:
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
The assonance and alliteration soften the impact of the terminal rhyme and establish a sensation of movement
to reinforce the image of the flowing river with the shadow of the pleasure dome floating upon it.
The imagery of “Kubla Khan” is evocative without being so specific that it negates the magical, dreamlike
effect for which Coleridge is striving. The “gardens bright with sinuous rills,” “incense-bearing tree,”
“forests ancient as the hills,” and “sunny spots of greenery” are deliberately vague, as if recalled from a
dream. Such images stimulate a vision of Xanadu bound only by the reader’s imagination.





Themes and Meanings
Much of the commentary on “Kubla Khan” has focused on the influence of Coleridge’s addiction to opium,
on its dreamlike qualities, the “anodyne” he refers to in his preface, but no conclusive connection between
the two can be proved. Considerable criticism has also dealt with whether the poem is truly, as Coleridge
claimed, a fragment of a spontaneous creation. The poet’s account of the unusual origin of his poem is
probably only one of numerous instances in which one of the Romantic poets proclaimed the spontaneity or
naturalness of their art. Most critics of “Kubla Khan” believe that its language and meter are too intricate for
it to have been created by the fevered mind of a sleeping poet. Others say that its ending is too fitting for the
poem to be a fragment.
Other contentions about “Kubla Khan” revolve around its meanings (or lack thereof). Some critics, including
T. S. Eliot in The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933), have claimed the poem has no veritable
meaning. Such analysts say its method and meaning are inseparable: The poem’s form is its only meaning.
For other commentators, “Kubla Khan” is clearly an allegory about the creation of art. As the artist decided
to create his work of art, so does Kubla Khan decide to have his pleasure-dome constructed. The poem’s
structure refutes Coleridge’s claim about its origins, since the first thirty-six lines describe what Kubla has
ordered built, and the last eighteen lines deal with the narrator’s desire to approximate the creation of the
pleasure-dome.
Xanadu is an example of humanity imposing its will upon nature to create a vision of paradise, since the
palace is surrounded by an elaborate park. That the forests are “ancient as the hills” makes the imposing of
order upon them more of a challenge. Like a work of art, Xanadu results from an act of inspiration and is a
“holy and enchanted” place. Within this man-decreed creation are natural creations such as the river that
bursts from the earth. The origin of Alph is depicted almost in sexual terms, with the earth breathing “in fast
thick pants” before ejaculating the river, a “mighty fountain,” in an explosion of rocks. The sexual imagery
helps reinforce the creation theme of “Kubla Khan.”
Like Kubla’s pleasure-dome, a work of art is a “miracle of rare device,” and the last paragraph of the poem
depicts the narrator’s desire to emulate Kubla’s act through music. As with Kubla, the narrator wants to
impose order on a tumultuous world. Like Xanadu, art offers a refuge from the chaos. The narrator, as with a
poet, is inspired by a muse, the Abyssinian maid, and wants to re-create her song. The resulting music would
be the equivalent “in air” of the pleasure-dome. As an artist, the narrator would then stand

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John Milton's On His Blindness 1673

John Milton‟s “On His Blindness” (1673)

When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness) Summary

The first seven and a half lines of this poem are one big, long, confusing sentence. Here's our summary: "When I think of how I have lost my vision even before middle age, and how I am unable to use my best talent to serve God, I want to ask if God requires his servants to work for him even if they don't have vision."

But before he can speak up, a figure called Patience answers his question. Patience is like, "You think God needs your work? No, man. His best servants are the ones who bear life's burden the best. He already has thousands of people running around across land and sea to serve him. You can just stand right there and wait on him, and that's enough."

Lines 1-2

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

• The speaker thinks about how all of his light has been used up ("spent") before even half his life is over. As a man without light, he now lives in a world that is both "dark and wide."
• The first word of the poem, "When," gives us an idea of the structure of the sentence that will follow. The structure is, "When this happens, that happens." As in, "When I broke the glass, I had to find a broom to sweep it up."
• But be careful – the second part of the sentence doesn't come until lines 7 and 8. Milton's audience was more used to reading dense and complicated sentences, so you'll want to take the first seven lines slowly. (That's OK, we also think Milton's audience would have had a doozy of a time figuring out text messaging.)
• Most readers believe that the poem is clearly about Milton's blindness, but the poem never directly refers to blindness or even vision. Instead, we think that "light" is a metaphor for vision.
• The metaphor is complicated. The speaker says that his light can be "spent," and this word suggests that he is thinking of something like an oil lamp. The light is "spent" when the oil in the lamp runs out. To make a contemporary comparison, it would be like someone comparing his vision to a flashlight that runs out of batteries before it is supposed to. Milton is suggesting that he got a bad deal.
• The word "spent" also makes us think of money. Milton is reflecting on how he has used or "spent" his vision, now that it is gone. Has he used it wisely, or did he fritter it away because he thought it would never run out?
• The word "ere" means "before." How does Milton know that he became blind before his life was halfway over? For this to be true, wouldn't he have to be some kind of psychic who knew when he was going to die? The usual explanation of this line is that Milton guesses roughly how long he will live. Milton went completely blind at the age of 42.
• Finally, calling the world "dark and wide" makes it sound like a scary place, doesn't it? Interestingly, Milton makes it seem as if the world has run out of light, rather than growing dark because of any blindness on his part.

Lines 3-4

And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, […]

• These lines are the trickiest in the entire poem, because they appear to be simpler then they are.
• The key word is "talent." You probably read "talent" and think of skills like throwing a perfect spiral or being a piano prodigy. But there's a double meaning intended for people who know history or Biblical scripture. In the ancient world, a "talent" was also a standard of weight used to measure money, just as a "pound" is a measure of both weight and currency.
• You can read Matthew 25 (it's short), but here's our 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 our guess 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.

Lines 4-6

[…] though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;

• The speaker has just told us that his talent is as useless as money buried in the desert, but now he says that his uselessness has nothing to do with a lack of will. To the contrary, his soul desires (is "bent") to use his skills in the service of his "Maker," God.
• When he is faced with God, he wants to have a record of accomplishment to show Him.
• God is being compared with the lord from the "Parable of the Talents" in Matthew 25. When God "returns" to him like the master in the parable, the speaker wants to show that he has used his talents profitably.
• The word "account" here means both" story" and "a record of activities with money."
• If the speaker turns out to have wasted his profits, he worries that God will scold or "chide" him. And if God is anything like the lord from the parable, the speaker could get cast into a darkness even more fearful than the one created by his blindness.

Lines 7-8

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. […]

• It has taken the speaker six lines to get through the part of the sentence that begins "When." Now he goes on to say what happens "when" he thinks about all the stuff he has described above. Namely, he wonders if God demands that people undertake hard, physical work, or "day-labour," when they don't have any light.
• The speaker doesn't have any light because he's blind, but in Milton's metaphor he compares this condition to having to do work at night that you would normally do during the day – like, say, building a house or plowing a field.
• The word "exact" means something like "charge," "claim," or "demand." You can "exact" a toll or a fee, for example. So the speaker wants to know if God demands work as a kind of payment that is due to Him.
• The first section of the poem is completed by the words "I fondly ask." The word "fondly" means "foolishly," not "lovingly." The speaker accuses himself of being a idiot for even thinking this question.
• Fortunately, "patience" steps in to prevent his foolishness. More on that in the next section.

Lines 8-10

[…] But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

• "Patience" to the rescue! Patience is personified as someone who can talk sense into the speaker. Patience is often personified in Christian art because of its role in helping one to achieve important virtues like courage and wisdom.
• The speaker is about to "murmur" his foolish question about whether God would be so cruel as to make impossible demands of work, but then his patience steps in to stop him. The rest of the poem is the reply made by patience.
• First, patience points out that God does not need anything. God is complete and perfect. He doesn't need work or talents ("gifts") of any kind.

Line 11

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. […]

• Patience now scores its second point in the rebuttal to the speaker. Patience argues that those people are the best servants of God who allow their fates to be linked with and controlled by God, as if they were wearing a yoke.
• Essentially, this means accepting things as they come, especially suffering and misfortune.
• A "yoke" is a wood frame that is placed around the necks of farm animals, like oxen, so that they can be directed.
• Patience doesn't want to make God sound like a slave driver, so God's yoke is called "mild," or not-that-bad. It's not how much you have to show for your time on earth that counts, it's how you handle your submission to God.

Lines 11-14

[…] 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."

• The final point made by patience is that God is like a king, not a lord, so the "Parable of the Talents" does not strictly apply.
• Lords need everyone on their estates to work for them; they usually don't have the resources to spend on keeping servants just to stand around and wait on them. Kings, on the other hand, have unlimited resources, especially if they control a "state" as large as the entire earth.
• With His kingly status, God has plenty of minions to do His "bidding" by rushing from place to place – that is, doing things that require light and vision. It doesn't make a difference whether one more person fulfills the role or not.
• But kings also have people who "wait" on them, who stand in a state of readiness until their action is needed.
• To summarize, we believe that the sentence, "His state is kingly," is meant to contrast with the "lordly" state of the master of the Biblical parable in Matthew 25.
• This being Milton, of course, "wait" can also have the meaning of waiting for something to happen, as in, "I waited for the bus."
• What would the speaker be waiting for? The Second Coming of Jesus? The end of history? We don't know because the poem only suggests this meaning oh-so-vaguely.
• The word "post" here just means "to travel quickly." That's why the mail is often referred to as the "post," because you're supposed to travel quickly to deliver it.
• The poem ends with a vindication of the speaker's passivity, which has been forced on him by his blindness.

Vision, Light, and Darkness

Symbol Analysis

This poem is sometimes called "On His Blindness," but the speaker might respond, "Blindness? What blindness? I'm not the one who's blind. It's the world that has run out of light." This argument is like saying that you aren't really running – it's the world that is rolling beneath you like a treadmill. As you can see, Milton uses complicated wordplay to describe why the speaker has a hard time serving God. His "blindness" is like a lamp that runs out of fuel, like the daylight that turns to night, and like a currency that hasn't been used to maximum effect.

• Line 1: Vision is not same thing as "light," although vision requires light. So, we can't just substitute one word for the other. 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. The phrase "this dark world and wide" is also an example of alliteration.
• Line 7: The speaker compares God – again using metaphor – to a master who makes his servants work in darkness. He "denies" them light, which sounds heartless.

The Parable of the Talents

Symbol Analysis

The poem hinges on a pun on "talent" in the sense of "skill" and "talent" as a unit of monetary measurement in Biblical times. The parable of talents occurs in chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, and it tells the story of two servants improving their own lot by increasing the bounty of their master. In the first section, the speaker compares God to the "lord" in the parable who goes away on a trip and returns to ask what his servants have done with their money. In the second section of the poem, "patience" explains that God is more like a king who does not need all his servants to actively work for him.

• Line 1: The word "spent" becomes a pun when we read it in light of the discussion of money and currency in the next few lines. The speaker's ability to see is like a currency, and he has unfortunately burned through it too soon. That "light" was supposed to last him all the way through his retirement!
• Lines 3-5: The word "Talent" has a double meaning, as described above. The whole Biblical parable about hiding the talent and not turning the master's currency into a profit is used as an extended metaphor in which God is compared to the lord, while the speaker is the third servant who has buried the money.
• Line 6: The word "account" is also a double-entendre that works on both sides of the extended metaphor. In one sense, "account" is a story of justification for how the speaker has used his time on earth. In another sense, the "account" is the amount of money the servant in the parable is able to show to his lord. The servant must give this account after his lord has "returned" from traveling.
• Lines 11-12: We think that the observation that God's "state is Kingly" is meant to contrast God with the lord from the parable.

Patience, Please

Symbol Analysis

"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.

• Line 7: The speaker is about to ask a rhetorical question about God's justice before patience interrupts him.
• 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.
• 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 11-14 form an extended metaphor comparing service to God with service to the most powerful king in the world.
• 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.

When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness): Rhyme, Form & Meter

We’ll show you the poem’s blueprints, and we’ll listen for the music behind the words.

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 favor the original Italian form of the sonnet. This form is divided up into two sections, one with eight lines and one with six. Shakespeare, on the other hand, used a sonnet form that ended with a rhyming two-line couplet. The Italian sonnet form was made popular by the Italian poet Petrarch, who was to the literary Renaissance what The Temptations were to Motown.

The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is ABBAABBAC CDECDE. So, you can see that lines 1, 4, 5, and 8 all rhyme with each other. Unlike a classic Italian sonnet, "When I consider how my light is spent" 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:

"Doth God ex-act day-la-bor, light de-nied?"

Finally, this poem features a lot of enjambment, which is when one line runs over into the next without a pause. Just check out the end of each line, and you'll find that over half lack punctuation markers like periods or semi-colons.

Speaker Point of View

Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

Though the speaker may be seething with frustration and even anger at God, he knows that he must tread very carefully if he wants to express himself. He has the skills and intelligence to do great things out in the world, but he has been tripped up by a seemingly trivial problem: his light has run out. Unfortunately, this unlucky event throws a big wrench in his plans to be useful. The speaker imagines that he could have become a famous politician or even, say, the author of one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. (Cough, cough). But now he can't possibly do any of that, right? (Cough, cough, cough.) He's a hard worker, and he can't just sit still! Can he?

You get the impression from reading the first section of the poem that the speaker just wants to shout, "You can't seriously expect me to do my Christian duty without vision. This is a joke, right?" Fortunately, the speaker has a little guy in his shirt pocket named "patience," capable of popping out and delivering a pep talk whenever it looks like the speaker is about to lose his cool. The important thing to remember is that "patience" belongs to the speaker.

Finally, we can see why the speaker thinks he would be so useful to God and to society: he is incredibly smart. With his ability to pack complicated arguments into a few brief lines, he would make an amazing lawyer. Also, he probably knows the Gospels inside and out because the "Parable of the Talents" is one of the least frequently quoted stories from the New Testament. On the other hand, the speaker still has "half [his] days" left to live, so maybe, just maybe, he'll still get around to doing great things.

When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness) Setting

Where It All Goes Down

The poem reminds us of those scenes from horror movies where the hero is walking through some dark and dangerous place – chased by monsters or something – and his flashlight/torch/lamp suddenly flickers and goes out. You hear heavy breathing and…what's that?! Did you hear a branch break?!

OK, the speaker is not in mortal danger, but he feels like his soul is endangered. He is left to navigate a "dark" and "wide" world without his vision. What's more, his demanding "Maker" has gone on a trip, and he worries he will be cast into further darkness if he can't make use of his "Talent." That "Talent" is buried deep within him, like a gold coin that has been thrown in a hole and covered up with soil.

In the second half of the poem, "patience" presents a different view of the world. In this view, the world is a huge kingdom with thousands and thousands of servants working to achieve God's will. Some of them speed from continent to continent like the characters in an Indiana Jones movie. Others just stand around until the king calls for them.

Sound Check

Read this poem aloud. What do you hear?

If you ever wanted to know what walking on eggshells sounded like in a poem, this sonnet is a prime example. The speaker buries the 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 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 math problem, and I like math so much, but you really need an eraser 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 darned pencil already!

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.

What’s Up With the Title?

This sonnet first appeared in Milton's 1673 collection of Poems simply as the nineteenth sonnet in the collection, or Sonnet XIX. Many readers, including us, refer to it by the first line, "When I consider how my light is spent." Identifying a poem by the first line is standard practice in the poetry world.

But, many more readers refer to the poem as, "On His Blindness." The problem with this title is that it didn't come from Milton. It was given almost a hundred years later by Bishop Newton, a writer and clergyman (source). Now, almost everyone agrees that the poem is most likely about Milton's blindness, but Milton never says so up front, leaving the door open for some interesting ambiguity. If Milton had wanted to say, "Hey, guys, this poem is about my blindness!" he could easily have done so. Newton's invented title changes the way you read the poem, which is why we prefer to use the first line of the poem.

John Milton’s Calling Card

What is the poet’s signature style?

"Light" in Darkness

Some critics think that Milton's blindness gave him an uncanny ability to depict light, darkness, and shadow. This sonnet offers pretty strong evidence for that claim. The central extended metaphor combines the concepts of light and money into symbolism as dense as seven-layer cake. Light and darkness interact in strange ways in Milton's poems. One of the most famous sections in Paradise Lost describes the interior of Hell as having:

No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,

"Darkness visible." Wow. Milton's blindness proved to him that one can "see" even without light. We should also point out that the distinction between light and darkness is central to Christian theology.

Tough-O-Meter

We’ve got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you’ll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)

(7) Snow Line

For a short, 14-line sonnet, this poem is pretty hard. That's Milton for you. Few poets display so much religious and literary knowledge as Mr. Milton, and this poem is no exception. Most people today don't memorize the Gospels like they did back in 17th-century England, but if you don't know the "Parable of the Talents" from Matthew 25, you miss a lot of the context for the poem's symbolism. It would be like reading a poem about "The Rumble in the Jungle" if you had never heard of the legendary boxers Mohammed Ali and George Foreman. Also, there are a lot of double-entendres in this sonnet, and some words like "fondly" have unexpected meanings. In short, this is a poem where Shmoop makes an excellent Sherpa to take you to the top of the mountain. The view is unquestionably worth it.

When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness) Theme of Guilt and Blame

The speaker's mind is a big ball of guilt and confusion. He takes pride in his vast intelligence, but worries that he failed to use his "light" when he had it. You can imagine him saying, "How could I have known my vision was going to run out?!" His soul "bends" toward service of God like a flower bends toward the sun, but he is no longer fit for the kinds of intensive work that he might have done. He hopes that God does not blame him like the angry lord from the "Parable of the Talents" in the Bible.

When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness) Theme of Dreams, Hopes, and Plans

Before going blind, the speaker has high hopes for what he might accomplish in the future. He says he would have been a supremely useful servant of God. But we can't know if his motives are truly selfless, or if he is an ambitious guy who now struggles to come to terms with a personal upheaval. As he looks to the future, he compares his situation to the third servant from the New Testament "Parable of the Talents" in Matthew 25. Because he has not increased his master's wealth, this servant is cast into the darkness. Considering that the speaker already feels he lives in the darkness, what further punishment does he expect? At the end of the poem, patience gives him a new plan: he should wait until God calls on him to serve

When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness) Theme of Principles

We've all heard the homespun wisdom "Patience is a virtue," which sounds almost mystical but is really like saying, "Blue is a color." The more interesting question is, what's a virtue? A virtue is a character trait that helps you achieve some desired good or outcome. Virtues are central to Christian theology. The speaker desires to serve God, but his impatience and sense of wounded pride threaten to get in his way by leading him to rashly criticize his "Maker." The virtue of patience helps him to remember that it's not all about him. Just because he thinks he has something to offer doesn't mean that God needs him to act right away.

When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness) Theme of Religion

John Milton was a Puritan who supported Oliver Cromwell's republican commonwealth after the execution of King Charles I of England. During this period, politics and religion were tied closely together, so that being "useful" to the government meant being "useful" to God, at least for Milton. The poem displays Milton's encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible but also his reforming instincts. Milton is not afraid to challenge the supposed moral of the New Testament "Parable of the Talents" by pointing out the difference between God and the lord from the story. The sonnet gives expression to intense religious emotions, but its rational and rhetorical qualities are equally important.

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ديمزديل كان ماشي بتثاقل وكان نفسه يترمي تحت شجرة ومايقوم ابداً هستر شافته ومالاحظت عليه اى اثار للمعاناة غير الى ذكرتا بيرل انه يحط ايده على قلبه.هستر نادت عليه وهو ماعرف مين يناديه وخطى خطوة وشاف شخص تحت الشجرة ونادا :هستر هستر براين هل هذه انتى؟.لما شافها سئلها انتى لسه في الدنيا؟ قالت له ان الحياة هذى خلال الـ 7 سنوات كانت لها وسئلته إذا كان هو لسه حي؟.كان من الطبيعي الاثنين يتسائلو عن الوجود الجسدى وان كل واحد منهم موجود وكانو كئنهم لأول مرة يتقابلو كان كل واحد منهم زي الشبح وكئن ذكريات الذنب والمعاناة كلها جاتهم






. ديمزديل كان يحس بالخوف إلا انه امسك يد هستر وكانت قبضته باردة وبدون كلام راحو جلسو تحت الشجرة وكان الحوار عادي كأى شخصين يعرفو بعض والتقو بعد غياب وشوية شوية بدئو يتكلمو عن الاشياء الى تشغل قلوبهم.ديمزديل طالع فى هستر وقالها هل وجدتى السلام؟ وهل تحسى نفسك مطمئنة؟.ابتسمت هستر وطالعت فى الحرف الى على صدرها وقالت له وانت؟ هل وجدت السلام؟قالها ماحصلت الا المعاناة بسبب كونى أنا لو كنت كافر او ملحد او شخص بضمير فاسد لكان وجدت الأمان و الطمأنينة لكن الان أعيش معاناة وانا الاكثر تعاسة .قالت له الناس يلجئولك وانت سويت اشياء كثيرة كويسة المفروض الشي دا يريحك قالها لا زادنى تعاسة وبالنسبة للأشياء الى انا سويتها انا ماعندي ايمان فيها كيف روحي الخربانه تساعد على توبة الاخرين كيف روحي الملوثة تطهر ارواح الاخرين كيف اوقف قدام الناس واكذب عليهم وهما يتوقعو منى الحقيقة. قالها انتى سعيدة لان عندك الرف القرمزي انا قلبي قاعد يحترق في السر ماتعرفي كمية الراحة الى يعطيكى اياها هذا الحرف لوكان عندي صديق حقيقي يعرف حقيقتى كان حالى ارحم. هستر طالعت فى وجهه وترددت قبل لاتقول :الصديق الوحيد الى تبكى معاه على خطاياك هو انا شريكك فى الذنب لكن انت عندك عدو تعيش معاه تحت سقف واحد.اندهش ديمزديل من الكلام وسئلها عن قصدها قالت هستر حاولت اكون صادقة وقول الصدق هو الخلق الوحيد الى حاولت اتمسك فيه خلال كل الصعاب الى مريت فيها انا وافقت على كذبه ماكانت صح من البداية الرجل العجوز الى ينادولى دكتور شلنج وورث هو زوجي.ملامح ديمزديل اتغيرت وعبس وطاح عالارض و غطى وجهه بيداته وقال المفروض عرفت المفروض فهمتها من ردة فعل قلبي كل مره اشوفه فيها قالها انتى السبب ما اقدر اسامحك قالت له هستر انت حتسامحنى وجلست تبكي وقالت له خلى الله يعاقبنى وانت سامحنى وحضنته وبكيت وجلست تكرر هل حتسامحنى الين قالها انا اسامحك وارجو من الله انه يسامحنا نحنا الاثنين فى ناس مذنبين اكثر من ذالك العجوز الى قلبه اسود من الانتقام وانعدمت منه الطهارة لكن نحنا قلوبنا ماصارت كذا.ديمزديل قال لهستر شلنج وورث عارف انك راح تقوليلى هل من الممكن يغير اسلوبه فى الانتقام؟ قالت له هستر في سرية غريبة فى طبيعة شلنج وورث وهذى جابها من كثر مايسعى للانتقام وما اعتقد انه راح يخون هذى السرية اكيد راخ يلاقى طريقة يكمل فيها شغفه المظلم .قالها طيب اش اسوي وكيف اتصرف؟ قالت له انتو لازم ماتعيشو مع بعض وقلبك لازم مايكون تحت نظره. قالها هذا اسوأ من الموت فين ارمي نفسي؟ يعنى اموت وخلاص؟ جلست تبكى هستر وقالت له انت راح تموت عند كل ضعف؟ ماعندنا طريقة ثانية .قالها قضاء الله وقع علينا هذا اكثر من الى اقدر اتحمله .قالت له انت معاك كل القوة حاول تستغلها .قالها انصحينى اش اسوي؟ قالت له هو العالم ضيق؟ هو الكون كله انحصر في القرية دي اخرج من هذى القرية وإذا ماتقدر تبعد عنها فى الغابات ابعد عنها فى البحر الى انت جيت منه تقدر تروح لندن او ألمانيا او فرنسا او ايطاليا راح تكون بعيد عن قوة شلنج وورث و عبثه قالها ما اقدر هنا روحي وهنا المكان الى حطنى فيه ربي وهنا خطيئتى قالت له سيب كل هذا و وراك اترك الالم و الدمار مكان ماصار وروح ابدء من جديد الحياة فيها سعادة ممكن تستمتع فيها وفيها خير ممكن تعمله وتبدل شخصك الزائف بآخر حقيقي سافر ادرس و علم واكتب و واعظ وغير اسمك وابدء حياة جديدة.

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