When I Consider How My Light is Spent

Sonnet XIX is a religious poem. Although the subject of Sonnet XIX is ostensibly Milton’s private and very personal struggle to understand the implications of his blindness (and the condition of his soul and his relationship with God as a result of that disability), the poem reflects Milton’s historical moment. In virtually every expression of his public life, Milton reflected his historical moment, the rise of the radical Puritan insurgency that first challenged the sense of unearned privilege and moral complacency of the Church of England and then under the crafty leadership of Oliver Cromwell did what had not been done in England for more than four centuries: depose a king. In the wake of the civil war that put a kind of people’s government in place—the so-called Protectorate under Cromwell—an entire nation was compelled to examine the implications of religion and more specifically how far the English Anglican Church and its hierarchy had betrayed the fundamental principles of simplicity, humility, and radical and joyous enslavement to God first, the Church second.

The poem reflects this very schism. Indeed, the poet himself is divided between what he understands is the suasive call of his profession, assorted accolades and the achievements, his unearned sense of privilege from that sense of impact and input, and his fears that now, given his blindness, those days are gone and God will no longer be pleased with him.