"When I Consider How My Light Is Spent".
A sonnet provides a poet with a set of implied but strict guidelines that they must follow in order for their poem to be considered a legitimate sonnet. In Milton's "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent," the struggle between a physically handicapped man and ironically his lack of "blind" faith in the truth of God is exposed. The question and answer form that is usually associated a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet allows the reader to understand the speaker's conscience. However, Milton chooses to utilize the question and answer sequence of this sonnet to emphasize the poem's overall theme, and to further support the notion that as the speaker realizes he does not need God.
The poem is literally about a man who is blind, and thus his God-given talent, which is the ability to write, is useless to him and to God. Although a possible translation of the "Talent" could be translated into a monetary value because of its biblical implication, the more accurate definition is "the ability to write," because you can not write in the dark, and Milton himself went blind by the end of his life. "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied,"(7) shows that the speaker fears the punishment or "chide" of not presenting his "true account," and that the speaker can not comprehend how he is supposed to use his mental talent without eye sight. Line three, "And that one talent which is death to hide," illustrates how anxious the speaker is towards his handicap and how he yearns to discover how to please God without this talent in exercise. However, at the poem's conclusion the speaker chooses not to make the effort to serve God, but rather to simply wait for "His call," which he considers to be serving.
In the parable of Talents mentioned in Matt 25:14-30, Line 15 "And to one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one; to every one according to his own ability; and immediately set out," contains the key phrase of "according to his own ability.
