Wrote a summary of How Soon Hath Time by John Milton
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Answer:
summary
Explanation:
How Soon Hath Time is one of the most intriguing and poignant classic poems. The basic premises are time and its cavalier indifference to individualistic attitude irrespective altogether. The poem owing to its strength and vigor has stood the test of millenniums as a firm ode to Puritan age poetry among other notables such as Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes and Lycidas. The poem was a vital literary work in a long movement of poetry stirring in England.
The poem starts on a tragic note with John looking in retrospect at his years gone-by, with his accomplishments running thin as opposed to years usurped. His belief in god remains shaky as his two poems indicates, furthered along by existential crisis externally.
John Milton was a staunchly religious person, considering himself a missionary to god’s noble cause. Awaiting divine intervention is evident in his first lines of How Soon Hath Time where he laments, ‘How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth’, as well as in another sonnet released after his subsequent blindness, ‘When I consider how my light is spent’. He awaits divine inspiration in his poetic publications. As the poem starts in a lamentable tone, he begins with ‘How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth’. He feels betrayed by the speed at which youth and time have left him with years past, not recording an achievement of substantial value. Career-wise and artistically, he has yet to produce his masterpiece and make a stamp on history.
Most critics and contemporaries would deem him as impatient and ungrateful. Having accomplished more than his contemporaries and future critics (having command on Greek, Latin, English, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, Aramaic and Syraic), and studied poetry linguistics for six years privately shows his apparent humility and measurement criteria. Only a handful of writers have published life-long classics at an early age including John Keats, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Arthur Rimbaud, while most others published their epic works in later years.
Briefly touching that aspect of his immaturity, ‘before the mellowing year’, he deems himself in competent and lacking in poetic prowess even at a ripe age of 29 years. With his self-established high aesthetic standards, he ardently aspires to attain them within his lifetime.
This is a direct linkage to his collegiate years where his feeble physical structure was deemed as girlish and feminine, resulting him earning the title of, ‘The Lady of Christ’s’. With a feminine overall outlook, he continues to underestimate himself in comparison to contemporaries having accomplished much more in his prime age.In conclusion, he ends his tragically-toned lament with having faith in god for assisting him in his quest for greatness. In another poem, ‘On His Blindness’, he lovingly accepts god’s will in his divine scheme of things, bestowing his fellow men as he pleases. As he indicates, ‘my great taskmaster’ has sealed his fate. John Milton’s monotonous tragic sonnet has tones of ambition, religious bent and a maestro in making with his magnum opus Paradise Lost released afterwards.
This is a direct indication to Jesus’s parable for god’s reward for all those reporting for duty on time and slightly late on time. God, being all the knowing and kind, views his pupils as equals. It’s also an indirect attack on god’s double standards ever so delicately.
John Milton mentions this discrepancy in his concluding lines, albeit with certain delicacy, ‘If I have grace to use it so’. He creates some ambiguity regarding his poetic grace. The grace could be within him or god-gifted. Using the word ‘have’, he’s conflicted on whether his poetic talents are at his own command or god’s will. This shows slightly negativistic attribution in his poem is later found in Paradise Lost poem, where Eve’s epithet for god is ‘Our Great Forbidder’. It shows veiled criticism to god’s so-called willpower and judgment traits. Milton was an ardent advocate of this ideology in his lifetime. Young Milton was conflicted of god’s role in life and its consequent play with freedom and freewill, obedience and justice, flowing freely in Milton’s published works.