John Miltons Sonnet 16 Essay -- John Milton Sonnet 16 Essays

John Miltons Sonnet 16In his sonnets, John Milton tackles a number of subjects which he addresses at considerably greater length in his other poetry and prose. These subjects range from religious to political, and rarely is any one piece of writing limited to one or the other of those fields. sequence his Sonnet 16 begins with a challenge to familiar biblical passages, Milton ultimately uses it to offer a critique of the nearly ubiquitous equation between the faggot and God. The sonnet features devil motifs that run through bulge the first seven lines. Both are biblical, and both are introduced in the first line. The one that seems to be the intimately significant is the light and dark imagery. In the first line, it sounds like a reference to Miltons blindness (this is more or less plausible depending on which date of publication you accept). As this language continues to crop up, it appears that Miltons darkness has a larger importance. In the second line, he r efers to the world as dark, and in line seven, he uses the lack of light to pose a frustrated question to God. By using this vocabulary to describe his fears, Milton creates a connection with two passages from the Bible that use the same language to explain the will of God and the way of the world. In Matthew 25 1-13, a brightly shining lantern symbolizes a soulfulnesss preparedness for Gods coming, and in John 94, Christ refers to the limited time he (and every man) has to do Gods work on earth before the night cometh, when no man can work (King James Bible). Milton engages with these passages, so that when he reaches the height of his dilemma, Doth God adopt day-labour, light denied,/I fondly ask he is issuing a direct challenge to a statement made b... ... God has a energetic band of angels as well as his followers among men who have learned to set aside all else and worship him. In this sonnet, Milton manages to turn his personalized complaint into not one but tw o of his favorite things praise of God, and intense criticism of the king. By focusing on the parable of the talents and its ties to both the worldly-minded and the spiritual, Milton calls God and King into relief. He is then able to use God and His eternal, abiding goodness to highlight the Kings small-minded, self-centered tyranny. This direct comparison gives readers a sense of Miltons belief that earthly authority is corrupt, and should never be a part of religion. God and the King are so vastly far apart that to bring them together, whether in poetry or in a church hierarchy, is offensive to God and can only bring out the weaknesses of the King.