WEBVTT 00:01.770 --> 00:04.720 Professor John Rogers: We've looked at Milton's 00:04.716 --> 00:06.776 earliest poem, or what Milton wants us to 00:06.783 --> 00:09.683 think of as his earliest poem, from a couple of different 00:09.677 --> 00:13.337 perspectives. So you remember our examination 00:13.337 --> 00:18.257 on Monday of the Nativity Ode, which I took to be an early 00:18.259 --> 00:21.799 poetic achievement in Milton's career, 00:21.800 --> 00:24.480 and which Milton himself took to be an early poetic 00:24.479 --> 00:27.739 achievement in his career; but we also looked at the 00:27.739 --> 00:32.029 Nativity Ode as a poem or a kind of statement about the 00:32.032 --> 00:35.272 very nature of an early poetic achievement, 00:35.270 --> 00:40.950 and about Milton's sense of the nature of a poetic career in 00:40.947 --> 00:44.087 general. And I think this can be said: 00:44.093 --> 00:48.163 this is true of a number of Milton's earliest lyrics. 00:48.160 --> 00:53.030 The early poems are not merely brilliant literary exercises in 00:53.034 --> 00:56.634 and of themselves, although of course they are 00:56.630 --> 00:59.370 that. The early lyrics are also 00:59.366 --> 01:02.586 instances, moments, in Milton's life-long 01:02.592 --> 01:05.902 meditation on what it is to be a poet. 01:05.900 --> 01:08.380 And I think it's fair to say that Milton's 01:08.377 --> 01:12.117 reconceptualization of the role of the poet permanently altered 01:12.123 --> 01:14.483 the way in which later generations, 01:14.480 --> 01:18.200 especially later generations of writers and poets, 01:18.200 --> 01:22.450 would imagine the work of poetry and imagine the power of 01:22.452 --> 01:25.692 the poet. In this respect Milton's 01:25.687 --> 01:31.017 contribution to the Western literary imagination is really 01:31.023 --> 01:35.893 unparalleled.Milton represented himself as a poet 01:35.892 --> 01:41.422 more often and with more care and attention than any English 01:41.416 --> 01:45.776 poet before him. And in fact it often strikes us 01:45.777 --> 01:49.977 that Milton's poetry seems so absolutely new and so original 01:49.979 --> 01:52.969 because he's really the first poet who, 01:52.970 --> 01:56.050 in a number of ways, in a number of different 01:56.046 --> 01:59.536 registers, seems often to be doing little more than 01:59.541 --> 02:02.741 describing himself, justifying himself, 02:02.744 --> 02:05.014 or accounting for himself. 02:05.010 --> 02:09.750 And it's this procedure of self-accounting that I want to 02:09.751 --> 02:14.581 focus on today as we look at Milton's amazing sense of his 02:14.578 --> 02:19.658 vocation as a poet and Milton's sense of poetry-writing as an 02:19.658 --> 02:24.908 example of what he calls in one context an example of "credible 02:24.908 --> 02:30.918 employment."Now Milton never writes a formal autobiography. 02:30.919 --> 02:35.449 But Milton's body of poetry and his substantial body of prose, 02:35.450 --> 02:39.980 most of it polemical prose -- this stuff is littered with what 02:39.981 --> 02:42.121 are clearly, recognizably, 02:42.117 --> 02:45.177 and explicitly autobiographical passages; 02:45.180 --> 02:50.340 and the degree to which you find yourself having some sort 02:50.336 --> 02:53.856 of affinity with this poet, with Milton, 02:53.862 --> 02:58.002 will probably correspond to the degree to which you find 02:58.000 --> 03:02.670 yourself enjoying or having some kind of tolerance for Milton's 03:02.665 --> 03:05.445 propensity for self-representation and 03:05.449 --> 03:08.369 self-accounting. I think one of the most 03:08.369 --> 03:11.369 striking experiences of reading Milton's prose works -- and 03:11.367 --> 03:15.507 they're typically polemical, political tracts in nature -- 03:15.510 --> 03:20.420 is the recognition of this writer's willingness to insert 03:20.416 --> 03:23.636 himself, to insinuate his own private 03:23.638 --> 03:26.218 meditations and self-reflections, 03:26.220 --> 03:31.060 into the otherwise public and often political concerns of the 03:31.060 --> 03:34.720 treatise. So Milton will continually be 03:34.715 --> 03:37.585 saying in his prose tracts, "Oh! 03:37.590 --> 03:38.750 I just had an idea. 03:38.750 --> 03:40.870 Dear reader, before I go on, 03:40.865 --> 03:44.465 perhaps I should say something about myself. 03:44.470 --> 03:48.060 I need to explain something to you about where I'm coming from. 03:48.060 --> 03:50.750 You wonder who I am to tell you this? 03:50.750 --> 03:54.490 Let me give you an account of myself and let me establish the 03:54.494 --> 03:57.994 reasons why you need to go on listening to me and why you 03:57.988 --> 04:01.358 should believe my position on this or that political or 04:01.358 --> 04:04.598 ecclesiastical topic."It's this drive to constant 04:04.602 --> 04:08.162 self-definition that becomes the characteristic feature of 04:08.159 --> 04:11.029 Milton's work for later generations. 04:11.030 --> 04:14.700 The Romantic poets like Blake and Wordsworth and Shelley and 04:14.704 --> 04:18.564 Keats in the nineteenth century are continually looking back to 04:18.564 --> 04:22.154 just those moments in Milton, Milton's method of 04:22.147 --> 04:26.217 self-justification and surprising self-assertion, 04:26.219 --> 04:30.289 because it was precisely in Milton's exercises in 04:30.292 --> 04:35.212 autobiographical writing that a crucial element of literary 04:35.213 --> 04:39.883 practice gets established: and that's the element of the 04:39.880 --> 04:45.650 poet's meditation on the meaning of his vocation as a poet. 04:45.649 --> 04:53.419 Milton is magnificently free of the pressures of modesty and 04:53.419 --> 04:56.469 reticence. And that freedom, 04:56.474 --> 05:01.334 the liberation from that burden, also becomes an enormous 05:01.330 --> 05:06.100 part of his appeal for later generations of writers. 05:06.100 --> 05:12.960 05:12.959 --> 05:17.959 It's just a fact that Milton is shockingly unembarrassed about 05:17.956 --> 05:22.376 making public all of his highest literary ambitions. 05:22.379 --> 05:24.849 There's every indication that Milton believed, 05:24.846 --> 05:27.966 as I had mentioned before, at an unconscionably early age, 05:27.971 --> 05:29.781 that poetry was his vocation. 05:29.779 --> 05:35.579 And he's continually willing to make that belief a public 05:35.583 --> 05:41.493 one.By "vocation" I'm not merely thinking of a job, 05:41.490 --> 05:44.750 although certainly the modern sense of vocation as a form of 05:44.750 --> 05:47.900 employment is certainly one that's available to Milton and 05:47.900 --> 05:51.050 certainly present in his thinking about the vocation; 05:51.050 --> 05:54.120 but I also mean vocation in its earlier, 05:54.118 --> 05:58.288 more etymologically pure sense, the literal sense of the word: 05:58.286 --> 06:02.216 vocation as a calling, from the Latin vocare. 06:02.220 --> 06:06.610 One's vocation is that to which one has been called -- called 06:06.611 --> 06:09.101 presumably by God -- to perform. 06:09.100 --> 06:12.680 So you have two rather competing senses of the word 06:12.680 --> 06:15.690 "vocation" here, vocation as employment and 06:15.688 --> 06:19.078 vocation as a calling, and they're constantly for 06:19.084 --> 06:22.394 Milton bleeding into one another, these two senses of the 06:22.387 --> 06:24.427 word, and often struggling with one 06:24.433 --> 06:26.553 another or competing with one another. 06:26.550 --> 06:30.030 Milton was always wrestling with the problem of vocation in 06:30.029 --> 06:33.129 all of its meanings, and the problem of what a 06:33.134 --> 06:37.634 calling actually is and how one actually knows one has a calling 06:37.631 --> 06:41.561 is a problem that pulsates somewhere beneath most of the 06:41.556 --> 06:45.696 lines of poetry that Milton writes.The most stunning of 06:45.696 --> 06:50.046 all of the anticipatory career narratives that I had mentioned 06:50.050 --> 06:54.260 in the last class appears in the passage of The Reason of 06:54.261 --> 06:58.331 Church Government that you read for today, 06:58.329 --> 07:04.289 so I'm going to ask you to turn to your Hughes editions and look 07:04.292 --> 07:08.932 at the top of the left-hand column of page 668. 07:08.930 --> 07:12.980 This is where Milton describes the outpouring of enthusiasm 07:12.975 --> 07:16.805 that he received for his poetry from a number of learned 07:16.811 --> 07:20.161 Italians during his recent travels to Italy. 07:20.160 --> 07:23.840 This is the top of the left-hand column on 668. 07:23.840 --> 07:26.460 Milton: …I began thus far 07:26.459 --> 07:30.309 to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at 07:30.309 --> 07:32.729 home, and not less to an inward 07:32.731 --> 07:37.171 prompting which now grew daily upon me, [and think about this 07:37.173 --> 07:40.653 inward prompting: is it the self's own prompting 07:40.653 --> 07:44.433 or is this a prompting experienced internally, 07:44.430 --> 07:47.090 a prompting of God, a vocation?] 07:47.092 --> 07:52.252 that by labor and intent study (which I take to be my portion 07:52.245 --> 07:57.565 in this life) joined with the strong propensity of nature, 07:57.569 --> 08:00.629 [I agreed with all of these voices that] 08:00.626 --> 08:05.246 I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, 08:05.250 --> 08:08.600 as they should not willingly let it die. 08:08.600 --> 08:11.800 Now it's clear here that Milton is imagining this future work, 08:11.801 --> 08:14.741 the work that "aftertimes will not willingly let die," 08:14.740 --> 08:18.030 as the fulfillment of a professional career. 08:18.029 --> 08:23.069 We certainly don't here have an image of a poet whose poetry is 08:23.069 --> 08:28.029 being written effortlessly or easily as the young Milton seems 08:28.027 --> 08:32.657 convinced that Shakespeare's poetry had been written. 08:32.659 --> 08:36.639 In "L'Allegro" and in "Il Penseroso," which you'll be 08:36.642 --> 08:39.682 reading soon--or especially in "L'Allegro," 08:39.679 --> 08:42.879 Milton is able to say that Shakespeare simply "warble 08:42.877 --> 08:45.197 his… Wood-notes wild." 08:45.200 --> 08:49.410 He was able to produce all those magnificent plays simply 08:49.412 --> 08:54.002 by instinct: a kind of natural urge produced and generated all 08:54.000 --> 08:57.530 of that poetry. But Milton portrays himself as 08:57.529 --> 09:00.749 a laborer here, a poet who by labor and intense 09:00.750 --> 09:04.670 study actually has to work to produce the great poem. 09:04.669 --> 09:07.869 Milton's divine vocation, his calling, 09:07.867 --> 09:12.787 seems in this light to be something like a vocation in the 09:12.793 --> 09:16.513 modern sense: it's a job that exacts work or 09:16.509 --> 09:21.089 labor.Now look at page 671 again on the top of the 09:21.089 --> 09:23.249 left-hand column. 09:23.250 --> 09:28.450 Here Milton is elaborating on the details of his anticipation 09:28.452 --> 09:30.362 of his undying fame. 09:30.360 --> 09:35.250 This is a polemical tract about a new way in which the Anglican 09:35.253 --> 09:38.413 church government should be organized. 09:38.409 --> 09:43.369 What in the hell is all of this doing here? 09:43.370 --> 09:48.760 Milton's reporting to the English people how he imagines 09:48.762 --> 09:51.412 his future literary fame. 09:51.409 --> 09:56.009 It's extraordinarily and wonderfully inappropriate. 09:56.009 --> 09:59.869 Milton's not making just any idle suggestion that he will 09:59.865 --> 10:03.715 write a poem that future generations will find themselves 10:03.721 --> 10:05.651 incapable of forgetting. 10:05.649 --> 10:07.989 This is the left-hand column on 671: 10:07.990 --> 10:11.760 Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any 10:11.761 --> 10:14.891 knowing reader, that for some few years yet I 10:14.893 --> 10:19.093 may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now 10:19.092 --> 10:21.772 indebted, as being a work not to be 10:21.770 --> 10:25.250 raised from the heat of youth, or the vapors of wine, 10:25.250 --> 10:29.040 like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar 10:29.040 --> 10:31.900 amorist, or the trencher of fury of a riming 10:31.900 --> 10:35.200 parasite… Out of nowhere you get this 10:35.204 --> 10:38.764 sense of anger on Milton's part and this kind of contempt that 10:38.760 --> 10:41.670 he feels and he will feel for the rest of his life: 10:41.674 --> 10:44.244 his contempt of his poetic competitors, 10:44.240 --> 10:49.850 his contemporary poets -- all of whom are vulgarians in this 10:49.852 --> 10:51.662 characterization. 10:51.659 --> 10:54.409 …nor to be obtained by the invocation of 10:54.410 --> 10:56.420 Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, 10:56.419 --> 11:00.049 [these are all forms of poetic inspiration that Milton is 11:00.049 --> 11:03.289 declaring he is rejecting here -- Milton's work, 11:03.289 --> 11:05.829 the great work will emerge instead from] 11:05.830 --> 11:09.610 …devout prayer to that eternal spirit who can enrich 11:09.609 --> 11:12.019 with all utterance and knowledge, 11:12.019 --> 11:16.919 and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, 11:16.916 --> 11:21.336 to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. 11:21.340 --> 11:23.760 It's an amazing passage. 11:23.759 --> 11:26.919 You have at the end of this sentence that same -- and you'll 11:26.915 --> 11:30.175 remember this -- that same image of prophetic preparation with 11:30.177 --> 11:32.527 which Milton had begun the Nativity Ode, 11:32.529 --> 11:36.369 but you'll remember that line, "from out his secret Altar 11:36.365 --> 11:38.415 touched with hallow'd fire." 11:38.419 --> 11:42.329 Like the old Hebrew prophet Isaiah, Milton will be inspired 11:42.330 --> 11:46.780 to write his great work when the iniquity of his lips is purged, 11:46.779 --> 11:51.779 when the eternal spirit touches with hallowed fire the lips 11:51.784 --> 11:54.204 of whom he pleases. 11:54.200 --> 11:57.270 Milton is going to be a great poet because it has pleased God 11:57.274 --> 12:00.284 to have chosen him, because God has called Milton 12:00.284 --> 12:03.954 to serve as a human conduit for the conveyance of divine 12:03.952 --> 12:06.002 knowledge; and so according to this 12:06.003 --> 12:08.813 concluding image here of this sentence, Milton's imagining 12:08.814 --> 12:11.634 himself more or less in the traditional image of the great 12:11.625 --> 12:15.115 biblical prophets, the passive vehicle through 12:15.123 --> 12:20.203 which the Deity transmits His awe-inspiring message.But 12:20.200 --> 12:25.710 this pious subservience that you have ending this passage -- and 12:25.714 --> 12:31.054 certainly it's consonant with that image from the Nativity Ode 12:31.054 --> 12:34.554 -- nonetheless, I think it's safe to say that 12:34.545 --> 12:37.775 it comes as quite a shock when you consider the sentence as a 12:37.784 --> 12:40.124 whole. Milton had begun the sentence 12:40.118 --> 12:42.858 not with calm, prophetic certainty about his 12:42.859 --> 12:45.689 divine vocation. He began it with a far more 12:45.692 --> 12:48.882 secular set of images, a set of images that comes from 12:48.877 --> 12:50.377 the world of business. 12:50.379 --> 12:54.829 It's a set of images that couldn't be more foreign or more 12:54.827 --> 12:59.507 alien to the prophetic mode of the Old Testament prophets. 12:59.509 --> 13:03.849 Milton begins by saying that he was going to write a great work 13:03.850 --> 13:07.460 because he's "indebted," because he owes the 13:07.456 --> 13:11.506 English people something after all of their patient waiting: 13:11.509 --> 13:14.879 " do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing 13:14.875 --> 13:17.875 reader, that for some few years yet I 13:17.879 --> 13:22.309 may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now 13:22.313 --> 13:25.343 indebted." And according to this image of 13:25.335 --> 13:28.945 the vocation of the poet, Milton isn't claiming divine 13:28.949 --> 13:30.449 inspiration at all. 13:30.450 --> 13:35.070 He's making a deal.Milton makes a covenant with the 13:35.070 --> 13:37.550 reader. It's as if he's signing a 13:37.547 --> 13:40.687 contract because he's asking for credit here. 13:40.690 --> 13:45.300 "Please let me borrow…" -- what on earth would the 13:45.302 --> 13:49.962 readers of this polemical tract care about Milton's literary 13:49.960 --> 13:52.940 future? He's no one to them except a 13:52.941 --> 13:56.541 political polemicist, but nonetheless this is a 13:56.541 --> 14:01.081 remarkable logic -- "Please give me a little more time, 14:01.080 --> 14:05.730 patient readers, as I prepare to write the great 14:05.727 --> 14:09.237 English epic." And like any shrewd borrower, 14:09.244 --> 14:13.454 Milton promises that the credit extended will prove an excellent 14:13.446 --> 14:16.596 investment. Milton will leave something "so 14:16.602 --> 14:20.192 written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly 14:20.186 --> 14:23.906 let it die."So think about this sentence with its 14:23.913 --> 14:28.433 combination of commercial rhetoric and prophetic language, 14:28.429 --> 14:32.209 making explicit the competing models really for the production 14:32.210 --> 14:33.450 of the great poem. 14:33.450 --> 14:36.790 So the first model is that the poem will be the result of the 14:36.789 --> 14:38.459 poet's labor, his hard work, 14:38.460 --> 14:44.000 the expense of which will be assumed by the reader's credit. 14:44.000 --> 14:46.970 That's the secular, the economic image. 14:46.970 --> 14:50.480 And the second model is that the poem will be the consequence 14:50.479 --> 14:53.579 of the poet's humble prayers to the eternal spirit, 14:53.580 --> 14:58.790 a spirit who doesn't inspire the poet who works the hardest 14:58.790 --> 15:04.180 but simply the poet whom it pleases the spirit to inspire. 15:04.179 --> 15:07.609 And so in the sentence that we've just looked at at some 15:07.608 --> 15:11.408 length now we have embodied in the form of a shifting argument 15:11.411 --> 15:15.031 -- a really slippery argument -- the two senses of the word 15:15.026 --> 15:17.886 vocation: vocation as a job and vocation 15:17.894 --> 15:19.644 as a divine calling. 15:19.639 --> 15:22.569 And I'd go so far to say that most of the really, 15:22.573 --> 15:26.003 truly memorable moments in Milton's poetry and prose have 15:25.996 --> 15:29.476 been generated by some version of just this conflict. 15:29.480 --> 15:33.440 Milton's poetry is always emerging from the gap between 15:33.440 --> 15:37.330 the competing meanings of a particularly important and 15:37.326 --> 15:41.646 weighty concept like that of vocation.Now to some extent 15:41.653 --> 15:45.693 we shouldn't find ourselves surprised that we see at the 15:45.686 --> 15:49.346 heart of Milton's statement anticipating his future 15:49.353 --> 15:53.173 greatness something of a contradiction concerning the 15:53.166 --> 15:55.436 idea of a vocation. 15:55.440 --> 16:00.180 It's just this uncertain status of a whole raft of ideas 16:00.181 --> 16:05.181 associated with vocation that really fissured and fractured 16:05.180 --> 16:10.870 the spiritual lives of countless seventeenth-century puritans. 16:10.870 --> 16:14.980 Milton is inheriting here an enormously rich tradition of 16:14.981 --> 16:16.891 thought on this subject. 16:16.889 --> 16:19.829 According to the sixteenth-century Protestant 16:19.834 --> 16:22.984 theologian Jean Calvin -- a Swiss theologian, 16:22.980 --> 16:28.810 or actually French but he lives in Geneva -- God chooses us, 16:28.805 --> 16:33.145 God elects us for salvation and damnation. 16:33.149 --> 16:35.099 We ourselves, of course, have no choice 16:35.096 --> 16:36.476 whatsoever in the matter. 16:36.480 --> 16:40.940 And this belief that's called Calvinist predestination is 16:40.942 --> 16:45.242 really at the heart of mainstream English Puritanism at 16:45.244 --> 16:48.394 this point. Our salvation is entirely in 16:48.388 --> 16:52.558 God's hands.But it seemed to a lot of followers of Calvin 16:52.564 --> 16:56.604 that it was a matter -- and you can imagine why -- it was a 16:56.601 --> 17:00.501 matter of some urgency and a matter of some importance to 17:00.498 --> 17:04.118 know whether one had actually been elected by God for 17:04.117 --> 17:07.117 salvation. We need some proof of our 17:07.121 --> 17:10.621 salvation simply to get up in the morning actually, 17:10.619 --> 17:14.689 when you think about it, and the only proof for so many 17:14.688 --> 17:18.908 of Milton's contemporaries seemed to lay in the degree of 17:18.907 --> 17:22.897 visible success that they seemed to have enjoyed. 17:22.900 --> 17:25.190 And so then, much as now, 17:25.189 --> 17:29.389 one of the most obvious signs of success was, 17:29.385 --> 17:31.765 of course, financial. 17:31.769 --> 17:36.529 The means by which we could discern whether God had called 17:36.532 --> 17:41.632 on us to join the elect was by discerning the profitability of 17:41.628 --> 17:46.138 our vocation -- vocation in the secular sense of 17:46.140 --> 17:51.070 employment -- and so you can probably see something like the 17:51.070 --> 17:56.080 strangely perverse logic that could begin to attach itself to 17:56.083 --> 18:00.593 the puritan belief in God's predestination of all human 18:00.594 --> 18:05.364 beings either to salvation or damnation.It's generally 18:05.357 --> 18:11.537 understood that this is not at all what Calvin had intended, 18:11.539 --> 18:13.899 but it's what happened nonetheless: one felt that one 18:13.896 --> 18:16.896 had to prove to others, and maybe more importantly to 18:16.904 --> 18:19.624 prove to oneself, that one has already been 18:19.618 --> 18:21.038 predestined by God. 18:21.039 --> 18:24.669 For salvation one has to be successful, and the only way to 18:24.669 --> 18:26.859 assure one's success is to labor, 18:26.859 --> 18:30.819 of course: to work hard, to achieve through effort that 18:30.821 --> 18:35.001 success which one secretly feared should already have been 18:35.003 --> 18:38.313 achieved by means of predestination.There's an 18:38.305 --> 18:42.115 irrational inversion of cause and effect here, 18:42.119 --> 18:46.579 and it's a magnificent paradox: God chooses us based on no work 18:46.575 --> 18:49.085 of our own, but we find ourselves working 18:49.092 --> 18:51.932 as hard as we possibly can in order to demonstrate to 18:51.930 --> 18:55.280 ourselves that we have, in fact, already been 18:55.283 --> 19:00.623 chosen.According to the German sociologist Max Weber -- 19:00.624 --> 19:06.524 the founder of the discipline of sociology who pioneers the study 19:06.517 --> 19:11.577 of the sociological impact of Protestant theology at the 19:11.581 --> 19:16.831 beginning of the twentieth century -- it is precisely this 19:16.830 --> 19:22.540 backwards and cruel logic that's responsible for what he -- and 19:22.539 --> 19:27.579 it's an enormous claim, essentially insupportable, 19:27.584 --> 19:31.494 but it's this backwards, crazily inverted logic that's 19:31.486 --> 19:35.316 responsible for the economic progress of the northern 19:35.315 --> 19:39.215 Europeans -- for what Weber calls the emergence of the 19:39.217 --> 19:41.497 "Protestant work ethic." 19:41.500 --> 19:47.180 So historians can and in fact have many times taken issue with 19:47.182 --> 19:50.632 a lot of Weber's historical claims. 19:50.630 --> 19:53.700 But he's invaluable, as the critic John Guillory has 19:53.699 --> 19:57.489 argued, for our purposes in the understanding of Milton and of a 19:57.491 --> 20:00.921 lot of the cultural business of the seventeenth century in 20:00.922 --> 20:04.772 general.The assumption among a lot of reformation Protestants 20:04.774 --> 20:08.334 in Milton's day was that what God commands above all else is 20:08.326 --> 20:10.526 our labor, our investment, 20:10.533 --> 20:14.413 and God expects after our labor and investment that we have 20:14.411 --> 20:18.561 something to show for it at the end -- it makes sense - that we 20:18.557 --> 20:20.627 have in some way profited. 20:20.630 --> 20:27.200 And so it's here at this intensely awkward point at which 20:27.195 --> 20:33.535 Protestantism and capitalism, two seemingly disparate spheres 20:33.535 --> 20:38.505 of activity and thought and being -- at this strange point 20:38.508 --> 20:42.778 at which these two things converge -- it's at this 20:42.784 --> 20:47.854 intersection that we find John Milton.To understand the 20:47.845 --> 20:52.895 concerns of Milton's poetry, it is important to 20:52.900 --> 20:56.900 understand this massive conjunction of economic and 20:56.900 --> 21:01.220 spiritual thought that's really at the heart of English 21:01.220 --> 21:03.650 Protestantism. But that's just a part of the 21:03.650 --> 21:06.800 story. There's also a more specific, 21:06.796 --> 21:10.626 a more local, reason for which our John 21:10.630 --> 21:16.380 Milton was susceptible to this profit-and-loss rhetoric of 21:16.381 --> 21:19.611 Calvinist puritan theology. 21:19.610 --> 21:23.800 Milton was the son of a banker. 21:23.799 --> 21:25.509 (Technically, banks didn't exist at this 21:25.512 --> 21:27.052 point in the seventeenth century. 21:27.049 --> 21:31.269 It's not until the Dutch invent banks late in the seventeenth 21:31.271 --> 21:35.281 century.) Milton is the son of what is the equivalent of a 21:35.282 --> 21:36.832 modern-day banker. 21:36.829 --> 21:39.809 He's what would have been called in the seventeenth 21:39.812 --> 21:42.022 century a scrivener or a goldsmith. 21:42.019 --> 21:45.969 A goldsmith was an early money lender, and it was a perfectly 21:45.972 --> 21:49.732 respectable profession as far as bourgeois professions go, 21:49.726 --> 21:50.976 and John Milton, Sr. 21:50.978 --> 21:53.018 has a pretty good living. 21:53.019 --> 21:57.609 But in practice it's actually much more analogous to what a 21:57.612 --> 22:01.732 modern-day pawnbroker does: you would leave with John 22:01.729 --> 22:06.079 Milton, Sr., the goldsmith, a portion of gold and on the 22:06.084 --> 22:10.364 basis of that collateral -- this is all the business of 22:10.360 --> 22:14.240 collateral loans, pawnbroking -- on the basis of 22:14.237 --> 22:16.007 that collateral, John Milton, 22:16.008 --> 22:18.028 Sr. would lend you a sum of money 22:18.033 --> 22:20.693 for which you would pay him interest. 22:20.690 --> 22:23.480 At the end of the loan upon your payment of the principal 22:23.484 --> 22:25.484 and of sufficient additional interest, 22:25.480 --> 22:27.730 John Milton, Sr., the goldsmith, 22:27.730 --> 22:31.580 would return to you the gold that you had entrusted to 22:31.577 --> 22:34.837 him.Now Mr. Milton took some risks when he 22:34.843 --> 22:39.783 separated himself from his cash and lent money to his clients, 22:39.779 --> 22:42.399 or lent more money to his clients than the collateral, 22:42.398 --> 22:43.928 the gold, was actually worth. 22:43.930 --> 22:47.510 And the motive for that risk, of course, the motive for that 22:47.509 --> 22:50.299 investment, was the expectation of a profit. 22:50.299 --> 22:55.489 It's just this economic pattern of risky investment and the 22:55.486 --> 23:00.136 expectation of a profit that forms something like the 23:00.135 --> 23:05.765 thematic paradigm of profit and loss that really is at the heart 23:05.768 --> 23:11.668 of Milton's representation of his future literary greatness, 23:11.670 --> 23:14.610 his conception of himself as a poet. 23:14.609 --> 23:19.559 Milton seems to have inherited from his father a language of 23:19.561 --> 23:24.851 commerce, a language that he was able so easily and effortlessly 23:24.847 --> 23:29.877 to transpose from his father's vocation as a goldsmith to his 23:29.882 --> 23:34.922 own anticipated vocation as a poet.Milton owes his father 23:34.917 --> 23:38.607 this whole lexical world of lending, 23:38.610 --> 23:41.540 of borrowing and of profit. 23:41.539 --> 23:44.329 But also Milton owes his father more than that, 23:44.332 --> 23:47.282 more than merely a set of metaphors and images drawn from 23:47.282 --> 23:49.602 the world of his father's money lending. 23:49.599 --> 23:53.559 To understand exactly what it is that John Milton, 23:53.555 --> 23:55.165 Jr. owes John Milton, 23:55.169 --> 23:59.929 Sr., we have to look at the Latin poem that Milton writes to 23:59.932 --> 24:01.952 his father in 1637. 24:01.950 --> 24:04.570 So let's look at that now. 24:04.569 --> 24:09.869 This is page 82 in the Hughes edition and the poem is "To My 24:09.872 --> 24:11.852 Father (Ad Patrem)." 24:11.849 --> 24:15.469 Milton expresses his debt of gratitude for his father's 24:15.469 --> 24:18.739 support. Milton graduated with an MA 24:18.743 --> 24:22.893 from Cambridge University in July of 1632. 24:22.890 --> 24:26.600 He had studied hard obviously and had supposedly been 24:26.601 --> 24:31.171 preparing himself for his future career, and that would have been 24:31.168 --> 24:33.308 the career of a clergyman. 24:33.309 --> 24:35.479 Milton's younger brother, Christopher, 24:35.484 --> 24:38.074 was already entering law school at this time, 24:38.071 --> 24:40.891 and it was clear, I guess, to everybody that John 24:40.893 --> 24:43.303 Milton, Jr. was not suited to a profession 24:43.303 --> 24:46.233 in the law. (Although I'm actually not sure 24:46.232 --> 24:47.462 why that's the case. 24:47.460 --> 24:51.920 Court records show that our poet was exceedingly litigious. 24:51.920 --> 24:55.120 He brought suit against dozens and dozens of people throughout 24:55.116 --> 24:58.216 his entire life, attempting to address a wide 24:58.223 --> 25:03.093 range of grievances through the use of the legal system.)But 25:03.092 --> 25:07.652 the vocation to which Milton Junior seemed to have been most 25:07.652 --> 25:09.662 suited, to everyone around him, 25:09.657 --> 25:10.967 was a life in the ministry. 25:10.970 --> 25:12.700 His reading, his learning, 25:12.701 --> 25:16.931 his talents as an orator -- all of these assets pointed to one 25:16.925 --> 25:20.325 potential career, and in fact nearly everyone in 25:20.334 --> 25:24.184 the MA class in which Milton graduated turned to a career in 25:24.177 --> 25:27.917 the church. This is what a master's degree 25:27.915 --> 25:32.715 could do for you in the early seventeenth century. 25:32.720 --> 25:34.500 Now we know, or at least we have a 25:34.498 --> 25:37.458 retrospective inkling from our reading of poems like the 25:37.461 --> 25:39.941 Nativity Ode and other early poems, 25:39.940 --> 25:43.800 that Milton on some level was imagining his vocation to be 25:43.801 --> 25:46.241 that of a poet -- but then, 25:46.240 --> 25:49.940 just as now, one could obviously not be a 25:49.944 --> 25:51.894 poet by profession. 25:51.890 --> 25:55.970 You can't make a living writing poetry. 25:55.970 --> 25:59.690 No one's ever made a living writing poetry who hasn't been 25:59.689 --> 26:03.279 patronized or given a lot of money by someone who's much 26:03.277 --> 26:05.167 richer than he or she is. 26:05.170 --> 26:16.320 Maybe Rod McKuen in the ‘60s made money writing 26:16.324 --> 26:20.144 poetry.. With that exception, 26:20.135 --> 26:25.045 I think very few people have actually, certainly in Milton's 26:25.049 --> 26:29.129 day, profited from the selling of their poems. 26:29.130 --> 26:32.870 Milton's father would obviously have found unsuitable the idea 26:32.869 --> 26:36.609 that seven years of expensive university education that he had 26:36.608 --> 26:40.528 invested in his son would result in nothing more than a career -- 26:40.531 --> 26:44.361 in what? In poetry?! 26:44.359 --> 26:47.869 Maybe some of you all too easily can imagine the arguments 26:47.873 --> 26:51.263 that might have taken place within the Milton household: 26:51.263 --> 26:54.533 "Why don't you become a lawyer like your brother, 26:54.530 --> 26:57.200 Christopher? Why can't you get a job like 26:57.198 --> 27:01.778 everybody else?"I'm going to ask you to imagine the domestic 27:01.784 --> 27:05.064 situation in the Milton household in 1632. 27:05.059 --> 27:09.389 Milton has just returned home after seven years at the 27:09.388 --> 27:13.958 university, a university education so generously financed 27:13.962 --> 27:18.212 by his father who was actually now 70 years old, 27:18.210 --> 27:19.130 and John Milton, Jr. 27:19.130 --> 27:22.230 was just turning twenty-four. 27:22.230 --> 27:25.230 Twenty-four is the canonical age at which young men were 27:25.232 --> 27:27.692 received for admission into the priesthood. 27:27.690 --> 27:29.340 It's like joining the army at eighteen; 27:29.339 --> 27:31.969 at twenty-four, that's what you do if you have 27:31.967 --> 27:33.307 an MA from Cambridge. 27:33.309 --> 27:35.769 You enter the Anglican priesthood. 27:35.769 --> 27:40.009 And a twenty-four-year-old Milton, after seven years of 27:40.007 --> 27:42.987 education, simply decides not to go. 27:42.990 --> 27:47.970 Instead of joining the ministry, Milton instead returns 27:47.973 --> 27:53.143 home and he stays at home without any means of supporting 27:53.140 --> 27:55.540 himself for six years. 27:55.539 --> 27:59.259 So with the financial support of his father Milton stays at 27:59.260 --> 28:00.800 home and reads. 28:00.800 --> 28:04.410 He studies. And it's in these years after 28:04.412 --> 28:08.182 his graduation from college that Milton embarks upon what is 28:08.182 --> 28:12.082 essentially a systematic study of all available knowledge. 28:12.079 --> 28:15.159 He commands a mastery of just about the entire canon of 28:15.158 --> 28:17.608 Western literary and historical learning. 28:17.609 --> 28:21.769 He prepares himself for what his father is still imagining 28:21.769 --> 28:25.639 will be the priesthood but for what Milton is probably 28:25.637 --> 28:29.507 imagining will be his future career as a great English 28:29.505 --> 28:33.735 poet.It's little wonder that one of the subjects of his 28:33.738 --> 28:38.038 meditations during this period is the problem of vocation -- 28:38.044 --> 28:42.574 the twin problem of what it is one is actually doing on the one 28:42.569 --> 28:46.209 hand, and what it is on the other 28:46.209 --> 28:50.029 hand that the father has called one to do. 28:50.029 --> 28:54.749 In Milton's poem to his father, to his earthly father -- and it 28:54.748 --> 28:59.388 becomes a confusion throughout Milton with respect to which of 28:59.391 --> 29:02.391 Milton's fathers, the heavenly or the earthly, 29:02.386 --> 29:05.426 is calling him to do what -- in Milton's poem to his father, 29:05.430 --> 29:09.920 you have the poet's attempt to justify himself before the man 29:09.924 --> 29:13.824 who seems to be asking him to define his vocation. 29:13.819 --> 29:18.079 So we have to assume that the occasion for this poem is some 29:18.082 --> 29:22.352 kind of question posed by John Milton, Sr., a question like, 29:22.345 --> 29:25.375 "To what end am I supporting you, Son? 29:25.380 --> 29:29.430 And if it's a poet that you want to be, to what extent can 29:29.428 --> 29:32.698 the writing of poetry be considered respectable 29:32.695 --> 29:36.455 work?"Look at pages eighty-two and eighty-three in 29:36.459 --> 29:39.619 the Hughes. Milton's expressing a 29:39.615 --> 29:42.665 dutiful degree of filial piety and gratitude, 29:42.670 --> 29:45.100 and this may seem familiar, too. 29:45.099 --> 29:48.719 "I could never repay you," he writes: 29:48.720 --> 29:51.210 …you have an account of my means, 29:51.205 --> 29:53.855 and whatever [and now we're on page eighty-three] 29:53.857 --> 29:56.837 wealth I possess I have reckoned up on this paper, 29:56.839 --> 30:00.939 for I have nothing except what golden Clio has given and what 30:00.938 --> 30:05.108 has been the fruit of the dreams in a remote cavern and of the 30:05.106 --> 30:08.726 laurel groves of the sacred wood and of the shadows of 30:08.727 --> 30:12.887 Parnassus. "I have nothing to show for all 30:12.886 --> 30:17.336 of your investment but my learning, all of that which 30:17.343 --> 30:22.403 golden Clio has promised me -- Clio the muse of history. 30:22.400 --> 30:26.630 I have also my aspirations, my dreams of becoming a great 30:26.631 --> 30:31.241 poet because I dwell among these highly literary -- the sacred 30:31.240 --> 30:34.490 wood in the shady groves on Parnassus." 30:34.490 --> 30:38.090 Now Milton explains that he has nothing now, of course, 30:38.089 --> 30:41.489 to show for his father's investment, but he will. 30:41.490 --> 30:44.180 Look at the last stanza. 30:44.180 --> 30:48.150 This is at the top of page eighty-six in the Hughes. 30:48.150 --> 30:53.040 Milton turns to address his own poetry. 30:53.039 --> 30:55.989 This is how he concludes this poem, "Ad Patrem": 30:55.990 --> 30:59.300 And you, my juvenile verses and 30:59.297 --> 31:04.717 amusements, if only you dare hope for immortality and a life 31:04.718 --> 31:09.678 and a glimpse of the light beyond your master's funeral 31:09.679 --> 31:12.709 pyre, and if dark oblivion does not 31:12.712 --> 31:16.692 sweep you down into the throngs of Hades, perhaps you will 31:16.687 --> 31:20.797 preserve this eulogy and the name of the father whom my song 31:20.802 --> 31:24.082 honors as an example to remote ages. 31:24.079 --> 31:25.989 Milton's essentially making a covenant. 31:25.990 --> 31:30.390 This is a contract with his father in this passage. 31:30.390 --> 31:33.730 He's engaging his father in to a contractual situation just as 31:33.726 --> 31:36.836 he will engage the entire English people (as we've already 31:36.844 --> 31:39.474 seen) in The Reason of Church Government. 31:39.470 --> 31:42.200 If his father continues to support him -- this is the 31:42.197 --> 31:45.457 magnificent logic here -- if the father continues to support him, 31:45.460 --> 31:49.030 he will repay his father with his own future fame, 31:49.025 --> 31:52.735 a name that his fellow Englishmen will not willingly 31:52.736 --> 31:56.446 let die. Milton's fame will preserve his 31:56.453 --> 31:59.163 father's name; and of course, 31:59.156 --> 32:01.806 it has throughout the ages. 32:01.809 --> 32:04.579 Needless to say, the satisfaction of John 32:04.579 --> 32:07.239 Milton, Sr. will have to be postponed to 32:07.240 --> 32:08.560 the great hereafter. 32:08.559 --> 32:12.499 He will not be able to reap the profit of his investment in his 32:12.503 --> 32:15.623 son's study until not only after his own death, 32:15.619 --> 32:17.559 but of course after his son's death as well. 32:17.560 --> 32:19.990 That's Milton's logic here. 32:19.990 --> 32:23.280 But then who would understand better than John Milton, 32:23.279 --> 32:25.999 Sr. the importance or the value of 32:25.997 --> 32:30.167 a long-term investment strategy?There's a tone of 32:30.171 --> 32:34.511 self-assuredness and a confidence and certainty in this 32:34.506 --> 32:36.496 poem that, I have to say, 32:36.495 --> 32:39.405 isn't always matched in the other works that Milton's 32:39.411 --> 32:41.151 writing in this same period. 32:41.150 --> 32:45.110 In most of the other writings that you have looked at for 32:45.110 --> 32:49.490 today, the weird Calvinist logic surrounding the idea of divine 32:49.494 --> 32:53.384 predestination makes it impossible for Milton to be that 32:53.384 --> 32:57.634 comfortable or that confident about the idea of a true poetic 32:57.627 --> 33:00.887 vocation. How can Milton know that he was 33:00.889 --> 33:04.679 really and truly called by God to be a great poet until he 33:04.675 --> 33:08.525 writes something -- it's not a bad question -- until he has 33:08.528 --> 33:11.648 something actually to show for his talent? 33:11.650 --> 33:14.860 And how can Milton have anything to show for his talent 33:14.862 --> 33:18.312 until he has -- this is the logic -- until he has patiently 33:18.312 --> 33:20.872 waited for God to inspire him to write? 33:20.869 --> 33:23.109 He can't know until he's been inspired to write, 33:23.113 --> 33:25.983 and he can't of course start writing until he's been inspired 33:25.978 --> 33:28.268 -- it's a peculiar but familiar double bind. 33:28.269 --> 33:34.969 It's a puzzle that proved infinitely anxiety-producing for 33:34.974 --> 33:39.084 the young Milton, and it's really the productive 33:39.079 --> 33:42.999 engine that keeps this extremely anxious poet going in the early 33:43.004 --> 33:46.624 years.It's just this double bind of vocation that's the 33:46.617 --> 33:49.747 subject of Sonnet VII, "How Soon Hath Time." 33:49.754 --> 33:53.454 That's the sonnet in which Milton laments the fact that he 33:53.452 --> 33:57.152 has turned twenty-three years old and has yet produced nothing 33:57.149 --> 34:00.119 that would indicate a shining poetic future. 34:00.119 --> 34:03.979 In that poem, as in the other things that you 34:03.978 --> 34:07.308 read for today, Milton is attempting to 34:07.310 --> 34:12.050 understand the problem of vocation through the specific 34:12.045 --> 34:15.105 lens of scripture, and that's what we're going to 34:15.105 --> 34:17.665 look at now. Nearly every conceptual problem 34:17.673 --> 34:21.913 available and that was puzzled over in the seventeenth century 34:21.911 --> 34:25.941 could be processed and then understood in some way in terms 34:25.940 --> 34:28.650 of a related problem in the Bible. 34:28.650 --> 34:30.800 Every conflict and contradiction within an 34:30.801 --> 34:34.161 individual or within the society at large could be interpreted by 34:34.160 --> 34:37.590 means of a related conflict, or a related contradiction, 34:37.594 --> 34:40.784 culled somewhere from the writings of scripture. 34:40.780 --> 34:44.460 For puritans such as Milton there were some especially 34:44.455 --> 34:48.755 important moments in scripture that could be used to tackle the 34:48.755 --> 34:50.415 problem of vocation. 34:50.420 --> 34:52.820 There were particular moments in the Bible that seemed best 34:52.822 --> 34:54.722 suited to answer this question, the question, 34:54.718 --> 34:56.988 "What is it that I'm supposed to do and what does it mean 34:56.993 --> 34:58.093 actually to do anything? 34:58.090 --> 35:02.780 What does it mean to do anything in a world in which God 35:02.783 --> 35:07.733 seems to be so entirely in control of all of our doings and 35:07.733 --> 35:11.253 of our actions?" Those passages of the Bible 35:11.253 --> 35:14.183 that seem to have been particularly useful for this 35:14.178 --> 35:17.218 dilemma were two parables from the New Testament, 35:17.219 --> 35:21.209 and those are represented in the packet: the parable of the 35:21.209 --> 35:25.129 talents and the parable of the workers in the vineyard. 35:25.130 --> 35:29.690 You will soon be seeing innumerable ways in which these 35:29.694 --> 35:33.924 parables continue to creep up in Milton's verse. 35:33.920 --> 35:38.050 The language -- we could also think of it as the ideology -- 35:38.052 --> 35:42.462 of these parables is constantly surfacing in Milton and provides 35:42.464 --> 35:46.394 something like a divinely authorized focal point for what 35:46.386 --> 35:50.026 I had mentioned earlier: this strange intersection of 35:50.028 --> 35:52.478 spirituality and economics. 35:52.480 --> 35:56.070 I know it's a little difficult to read, but I included 35:56.069 --> 36:00.069 nonetheless in the packet the Geneva Bible (that's the great 36:00.065 --> 36:03.985 sixteenth-century Calvinist Bible) -- that version of these 36:03.994 --> 36:08.134 two parables written before the King James because it provides 36:08.125 --> 36:12.765 all of those glosses, those marginal annotations on 36:12.765 --> 36:18.115 the side, those incredibly mean-spirited and dark Calvinist 36:18.117 --> 36:21.067 interpretations of the Bible. 36:21.070 --> 36:24.900 I'm convinced that those glosses, those annotations, 36:24.904 --> 36:29.574 drove Milton absolutely mad and so much of his own rewriting of 36:29.565 --> 36:33.245 the Bible essentially in Paradise Lost is a 36:33.249 --> 36:37.459 response to a lot of the annotations of the Bible that he 36:37.459 --> 36:42.199 grew up reading.So the first parable that we have to look at 36:42.195 --> 36:46.775 is the one that without question instilled the most anxiety in 36:46.781 --> 36:49.971 Milton, and that's the parable of the 36:49.966 --> 36:51.476 talents from Matthew 25. 36:51.480 --> 36:52.890 So this is the parable of the talents. 36:52.889 --> 36:58.289 A master distributes his wealth to his servants and the wealth 36:58.294 --> 37:01.754 is distributed in the form of a coin, 37:01.750 --> 37:05.620 and the name of the coin is translated in English with the 37:05.623 --> 37:07.053 word talent. 37:07.050 --> 37:10.850 It's precisely the word here for this coin that gives us our 37:10.850 --> 37:13.750 modern word, our modern word talent, 37:13.750 --> 37:17.530 which means "a skill," of course or "a predisposition." 37:17.530 --> 37:18.110 Now think about it. 37:18.110 --> 37:23.380 That our word talent has its origin in this parable 37:23.379 --> 37:28.829 should give you a sense of the extraordinary cultural weight 37:28.834 --> 37:32.814 that this parable has assumed.Okay. 37:32.809 --> 37:34.949 To one servant the master gave five talents. 37:34.950 --> 37:35.860 You remember this story. 37:35.860 --> 37:38.200 To one servant the master gave five talents, 37:38.203 --> 37:41.093 to another he gave two, and to a third servant he gave 37:41.092 --> 37:43.542 one talent. When the master returns from 37:43.541 --> 37:47.041 his journey, he learns that the first two servants had wisely 37:47.036 --> 37:49.246 and piously invested their talents, 37:49.250 --> 37:51.360 and they had doubled their money. 37:51.360 --> 37:55.290 They had profited and the master praises them. 37:55.289 --> 37:58.699 But the servant who had been given only one talent hid the 37:58.700 --> 38:02.170 talent in the earth so as -- perfectly understandably -- so 38:02.171 --> 38:04.441 as not to risk the only talent [laughs] 38:04.444 --> 38:06.184 that he had been given. 38:06.179 --> 38:09.769 I think the genius of this parable hinges on the fact that 38:09.773 --> 38:13.683 the servant who was only given one talent seems to be acting so 38:13.681 --> 38:17.341 perfectly reasonably -- with a laudable form of caution and 38:17.338 --> 38:19.748 hesitation, you could actually say. 38:19.750 --> 38:21.830 And so he explains to the master: 38:21.829 --> 38:26.279 I knew thou was't an hard man which reapest where thou 38:26.278 --> 38:30.198 sowedst not and gatherest where thou strawest not. 38:30.199 --> 38:36.449 I was therefore afraid and I went and hid thy talent in the 38:36.451 --> 38:39.821 earth. Because the servant had not 38:39.816 --> 38:44.076 been willing to spend the only talent that he had been given, 38:44.079 --> 38:47.789 the master instructs him to give his one and only talent to 38:47.794 --> 38:49.464 the man who now has ten. 38:49.460 --> 38:52.280 And the master concludes with an imperative that is surely one 38:52.282 --> 38:54.922 of the most terrifying utterances in the entire Bible: 38:54.920 --> 39:00.000 Cast therefore that unprofitable servant into utter 39:00.001 --> 39:03.421 darkness. There shall be weeping and 39:03.416 --> 39:07.756 gnashing of teeth. The conclusion of this parable 39:07.758 --> 39:11.858 seems so violent perhaps because the lesson to be learned from 39:11.863 --> 39:13.953 the parable is so uncertain. 39:13.949 --> 39:17.809 Milton seems to have been drawn to the parable as a way of 39:17.805 --> 39:21.995 understanding the expectations placed upon him by his master -- 39:21.998 --> 39:24.958 actually his two masters, or his two fathers. 39:24.960 --> 39:28.250 There is first the earthly father, John Milton, 39:28.253 --> 39:32.623 Sr., who had given Milton the talent of an expensive education 39:32.620 --> 39:37.060 and then six years of additional heavily subsidized study; 39:37.059 --> 39:40.599 and there is also the Heavenly Father, who had given Milton his 39:40.601 --> 39:44.031 rhetorical gifts and expected him to use them in some way for 39:44.028 --> 39:47.508 God's benefit -- presumably to use them in some way beneficial 39:47.513 --> 39:51.113 to the church (the most obvious way being naturally the vocation 39:51.111 --> 39:52.541 of the ministry). 39:52.539 --> 39:56.719 And the parable is a horrifying one because it places such an 39:56.720 --> 40:00.130 unspeakable pressure on the interpreter to produce 40:00.134 --> 40:02.694 something, to show something for himself 40:02.688 --> 40:03.938 at the end of the day. 40:03.940 --> 40:06.330 And for Milton, whose temperament up to this 40:06.329 --> 40:08.829 point inclined him obviously to hesitation, 40:08.829 --> 40:12.329 to postponement, and to merely the anticipation 40:12.330 --> 40:16.360 of profit, the pressure applied by this parable of the 40:16.364 --> 40:20.404 unprofitable servant may very well have seemed utterly 40:20.398 --> 40:24.278 unbearable.But there was another parable, 40:24.280 --> 40:27.790 another of Jesus' parables that also treated the problem of 40:27.793 --> 40:30.503 vocation. And like the parable of the 40:30.498 --> 40:34.948 talents, it provided what seemed to be a model for a kind of 40:34.954 --> 40:38.114 pattern of action, or actually the trajectory of a 40:38.112 --> 40:41.362 career: and this is the parable of the workers in the vineyard. 40:41.360 --> 40:46.890 Here a householder looks for laborers that he will pay a 40:46.891 --> 40:50.291 penny a day. The laborers who began to work 40:50.288 --> 40:53.728 at dawn earn a penny, the laborers hired in the third 40:53.734 --> 40:57.384 hour earn a penny and the laborers who stood idle in the 40:57.380 --> 41:01.220 marketplace until the eleventh hour -- who were asked to do 41:01.224 --> 41:05.274 nothing until the last possible moment -- they also received a 41:05.267 --> 41:08.777 penny for their pains at the end of the day, 41:08.780 --> 41:12.000 "their pains such as they were."Now when asked by the 41:12.004 --> 41:15.524 hardest workers why "each of the laborers received every man a 41:15.516 --> 41:17.786 penny," the householder replies, 41:17.788 --> 41:20.928 "Take that which is thine own and go thy way. 41:20.929 --> 41:25.109 I will give unto this last as much as to thee." 41:25.110 --> 41:27.960 So in this parable, which has suggested to 41:27.962 --> 41:32.072 generations of readers something like socialism or a form of 41:32.066 --> 41:34.626 communism, the amount of labor actually 41:34.632 --> 41:37.532 expended is immaterial, so that the latecomer to the 41:37.532 --> 41:40.952 job is rewarded the same as the worker who was there from the 41:40.945 --> 41:44.125 very beginning and working from the very beginning. 41:44.130 --> 41:48.580 As a model of economic activity or as a kind of vocation guide, 41:48.584 --> 41:52.824 this parable couldn't be more opposed -- or to some wouldn't 41:52.824 --> 41:56.704 seem more opposed -- to the parable of the unprofitable 41:56.704 --> 41:59.294 servant. The men who stood around and 41:59.293 --> 42:02.523 did nothing until they were called to act earned precisely 42:02.515 --> 42:05.955 the same amount as those who had been laboring in the vineyard 42:05.964 --> 42:09.514 all day. They're not punished for their 42:09.512 --> 42:11.952 unprofitable expectation. 42:11.949 --> 42:14.439 They're not punished for just waiting around to be called to 42:14.444 --> 42:15.814 work. They're not bidden to be cast 42:15.812 --> 42:18.072 out in to utter darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of 42:18.067 --> 42:20.047 teeth. They're rewarded for 42:20.048 --> 42:22.978 their waiting.This parable may seem, I think, 42:22.977 --> 42:26.087 to be a little more compatible with Milton's general 42:26.090 --> 42:29.570 temperament in the years of his studious retirement. 42:29.570 --> 42:33.290 As a young man consumed with anxiety about his failure yet to 42:33.292 --> 42:36.952 do anything, whether to gain employment as a clergyman or to 42:36.952 --> 42:40.432 produce somehow some great work of literature -- Milton's 42:40.426 --> 42:44.146 continually seeking assurance that the latecomer (and this is 42:44.148 --> 42:47.558 how he's thinking of himself) will be rewarded, 42:47.559 --> 42:51.119 that the latecomer will be actually able to produce 42:51.119 --> 42:54.749 something when he is called to produce something. 42:54.750 --> 42:59.850 For Milton these two parables were locked in a powerful 42:59.850 --> 43:03.440 dialectical relation to one another. 43:03.440 --> 43:08.170 The "parable of the talents" rewards hard work and 43:08.166 --> 43:11.506 investment; and it's satisfying because it 43:11.514 --> 43:14.864 does that, but it also instills an anxiety 43:14.864 --> 43:16.684 about non-productivity. 43:16.679 --> 43:20.909 The "parable of the vineyard" assures us that God rewards us 43:20.906 --> 43:24.126 regardless of our hard work and investment, 43:24.130 --> 43:29.810 but only if we're called, only if God chooses us. 43:29.809 --> 43:33.619 And so you can see the strange dialectic developing here: 43:33.617 --> 43:37.017 the anxiety aroused by one parable necessitates the 43:37.016 --> 43:40.276 consolation that's offered by the other one, 43:40.280 --> 43:44.800 but the consoling parable soon arouses its own anxieties, 43:44.798 --> 43:48.748 which only can be quieted by recourse to the other 43:48.751 --> 43:52.311 parable.The result, needless to say, 43:52.313 --> 43:53.873 is mind-spinning. 43:53.869 --> 43:57.109 We're all familiar with at least a version of this. 43:57.110 --> 44:01.300 All of us just as human beings, all of us want to be rewarded. 44:01.300 --> 44:05.470 We want to be loved for our hard work, and we're all working 44:05.467 --> 44:06.807 really hard here. 44:06.809 --> 44:09.559 But of course, we also want to be loved -- we 44:09.564 --> 44:12.444 want to be rewarded unconditionally without any 44:12.444 --> 44:14.264 contingencies whatsoever. 44:14.260 --> 44:17.440 On some level that's just the human condition. 44:17.440 --> 44:22.470 And Milton uses the language of these two parables to get at 44:22.470 --> 44:26.900 this problem that has resonances in every conceivable 44:26.903 --> 44:31.933 sphere.Now shortly after Milton composed the sonnet "How 44:31.934 --> 44:35.984 Soon Hath Time," he wrote a letter to a 44:35.984 --> 44:39.684 friend in which he enclosed this poem, the sonnet. 44:39.679 --> 44:42.049 This is in the packet after the parables. 44:42.050 --> 44:45.050 We don't know the intended recipient of this letter, 44:45.051 --> 44:48.581 and we actually have no idea whether Milton actually sent the 44:48.582 --> 44:51.182 letter; but a couple of drafts of this 44:51.182 --> 44:53.922 letter actually exist in Milton's own hand, 44:53.916 --> 44:57.756 and the letter is clearly a document that Milton had devoted 44:57.756 --> 44:59.966 some energy and some time to. 44:59.970 --> 45:00.950 We need to look at it. 45:00.949 --> 45:03.909 The unnamed friend sounds quite a bit actually like 45:03.910 --> 45:05.610 Milton's disapproving father. 45:05.610 --> 45:08.700 The friend has obviously chided Milton for not doing anything 45:08.696 --> 45:11.056 with his life. Milton has shown so much 45:11.061 --> 45:13.091 promise. He possessed so many obvious 45:13.089 --> 45:16.199 talents that could be poured into the profession for which he 45:16.195 --> 45:19.145 was so clearly suited -- the profession of the ministry -- 45:19.146 --> 45:22.246 but Milton was remaining at his father's house in what seemed 45:22.253 --> 45:24.123 like a perpetual state of humiliating 45:24.116 --> 45:25.666 self-infantilization. 45:25.670 --> 45:28.750 He seems to have been doing nothing but reading, 45:28.749 --> 45:32.679 acquiring more knowledge and really essentially just learning 45:32.680 --> 45:34.580 for the sake of learning. 45:34.579 --> 45:38.649 And so Milton responds to what he takes to be this objection. 45:38.650 --> 45:41.920 He responds in the second paragraph of the letter in the 45:41.916 --> 45:45.296 left-hand column of the packet to this criticism that he's 45:45.302 --> 45:47.962 doing so little. Milton acknowledges that the 45:47.964 --> 45:51.024 course he's chosen for himself may not be a natural one: 45:51.019 --> 45:55.329 Nature herself pushes a young man to begin a family and 45:55.327 --> 45:58.627 to seek credible employment [Milton writes]. 45:58.630 --> 46:02.790 The natural desire for fame seated in the breast of every 46:02.793 --> 46:07.253 true scholar usually pushes him to make haste by the readiest 46:07.253 --> 46:11.643 way of publishing and divulging conceived merits. 46:11.639 --> 46:14.559 But it's just this making haste toward publication -- writing 46:14.559 --> 46:17.819 something really great right now -- that Milton's resisting here. 46:17.820 --> 46:21.480 He claims to be studying and learning rather than producing 46:21.482 --> 46:24.112 right now; and there's a problem with just 46:24.106 --> 46:27.236 studying and learning, and it's a problem that Milton 46:27.236 --> 46:29.916 can't avoid. It's possible that in merely 46:29.916 --> 46:33.466 reading and in merely amassing more and more knowledge, 46:33.469 --> 46:37.589 Milton's doing little more than the unprofitable servant in 46:37.587 --> 46:40.377 Matthew 25. It's possible that he's hiding 46:40.375 --> 46:43.915 his talent or burying his conceived merits deep within the 46:43.920 --> 46:46.810 earth, and it's this frightening 46:46.810 --> 46:52.590 possibility that Milton forces himself to engage head on -- the 46:52.590 --> 46:57.250 implications of this parable.Look in the packet 46:57.251 --> 47:03.591 at this letter near the top of the right-hand side of the page. 47:03.590 --> 47:06.960 Milton claims that his love of learning might seem to 47:06.958 --> 47:09.548 contradict the parable of the talents. 47:09.550 --> 47:12.030 The master had commanded his servants, of course, 47:12.025 --> 47:14.805 to do something -- to show a profit in a due and timely 47:14.811 --> 47:16.841 fashion, but Milton wants his friend 47:16.837 --> 47:19.597 here to know that there's, of course, nothing to worry 47:19.600 --> 47:21.840 about. This is how Milton's mind is 47:21.837 --> 47:23.287 working overtime here. 47:23.289 --> 47:27.379 This is the argument: Milton's pursuing his learning. 47:27.380 --> 47:31.120 He's postponing his publication because it's his job really to 47:31.123 --> 47:34.253 consider the master's great commandment all the more 47:34.253 --> 47:36.423 closely. The point of the parable, 47:36.424 --> 47:39.814 Milton explains -- this is an unbelievable misreading of the 47:39.810 --> 47:43.020 biblical test -- the point of the parable is not that the 47:43.024 --> 47:46.644 servant should have invested his one talent just anywhere. 47:46.639 --> 47:49.459 The servant's problem was that he didn't take enough time. 47:49.460 --> 47:52.700 He didn't carefully consider the command, because a careful 47:52.695 --> 47:56.205 consideration of the master's command, and I'm quoting here: 47:56.210 --> 47:59.770 …does not press forward as soon as may be to 47:59.773 --> 48:03.593 undergo but keeps off with the sacred reverence and religious 48:03.592 --> 48:08.142 advisement how best to undergo, not taking thought of being 48:08.142 --> 48:12.532 late so as to give advantage to be more fit. 48:12.530 --> 48:14.740 Unbelievable. You look at a passage like that 48:14.739 --> 48:15.769 in complete astonishment. 48:15.769 --> 48:19.159 Milton has invoked, of course to his own detriment 48:19.160 --> 48:20.960 -- what was he thinking? 48:20.960 --> 48:23.490 -- the parable of the unprofitable servant, 48:23.485 --> 48:25.225 the parable of the talents. 48:25.230 --> 48:28.020 But he invokes it to show that if one really reads it carefully 48:28.023 --> 48:30.643 enough, one can see that the lesson to be drawn has nothing 48:30.636 --> 48:33.286 whatsoever to do with the due and timely investment of one's 48:33.294 --> 48:35.604 talent. What this parable really 48:35.601 --> 48:40.191 teaches us is that we do best to wait, we do best to consider the 48:40.191 --> 48:42.781 command, to consider all of the possible 48:42.782 --> 48:44.122 investment strategies. 48:44.119 --> 48:46.499 Maybe we want to go into the ministry, maybe we want to go 48:46.504 --> 48:48.624 into poetry. Perhaps we want to write like 48:48.622 --> 48:51.742 Shakespeare, maybe we want to be a writer like the great Old 48:51.740 --> 48:53.220 Testament prophet Isaiah. 48:53.219 --> 48:55.919 But the last thing we should be burdened with, 48:55.920 --> 48:58.620 Milton's suggesting here, is the fear of being 48:58.619 --> 49:02.159 late.Now I don't have to tell you that Milton has done a 49:02.159 --> 49:05.219 powerful violence to this parable in Matthew. 49:05.219 --> 49:09.089 Now God only knows what this parable actually means. 49:09.090 --> 49:11.570 It's perfectly inscrutable as far as I'm concerned. 49:11.570 --> 49:15.740 But I think I can say with absolute certainty that one of 49:15.738 --> 49:19.978 its possible significances cannot be that the unprofitable 49:19.980 --> 49:24.000 servant should have waited to make his investment. 49:24.000 --> 49:25.960 Now think of it: if Milton had been the servant, 49:25.961 --> 49:28.301 he wouldn't even have made it to the stage of burying the 49:28.299 --> 49:29.509 stupid coin in the earth. 49:29.510 --> 49:32.370 He would be consumed with the consideration of whether to bury 49:32.365 --> 49:35.075 it here or whether to bury it there -- or should he bury it 49:35.080 --> 49:43.850 two feet under, or maybe he should bury it six 49:43.852 --> 49:49.372 feet under?Okay. 49:49.370 --> 49:51.800 I'm going to stop there. 49:51.800 --> 49:55.350 There's a lot more to say about the parable of the talents and 49:55.347 --> 49:57.847 the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, 49:57.848 --> 49:59.998 but we have run out of time.