by Kerry Michael Wood

Created on: June 21, 2008   Last Updated: August 19, 2008

Though blind when he composed his greatest poetry, John Milton could think in iambic pentameter. Over a period of four to five years he dictated to one or another of his daughters the epic poem Paradise Lost. A shorter sequel, Paradise Regained, and the drama Samson Agonistes followed soon after. Ludwig van Beethoven, stone deaf, wrote and orchestrated symphonies he could hear only in his mind. One wonders if Michelangelo, sightless, could have sculpted the Pieta and the statue of David using only his hands to feel the marble he was shaping to exquisite perfection.

It seems false modesty when, in the sonnet On His Blindness, Milton refers to his genius and virtuosity as mere talent. But that would be to restrict the galaxies of meaning revolving around the word "talent" and other deceptively ordinary words such as "prevent" and "wait."

The poem commences with the poet's consideration of the second half of his life, which will be spent in darkness. He began to lose his sight in his early 30s. Doctors warned him against persisting in the eye-straining labor of writing pamphlets and public statements in defense and support of Oliver Cromwell's Puritan regime in which he served as Latin Secretary, a post similar to our Secretary of State. Milton chose to continue. He went totally blind in 1651 at age 43.

The man did not have an easy life. Milton's first wife, 17-year-old Mary Powell, fled to her parents' home immediately after the marriage ceremony and stayed there for several years. Milton managed a reconciliation, and Mary bore him three daughters and a son who died in infancy. She died three days after the birth of the third daughter.

He sought child-rearing aid from his mother-in-law, a woman who strongly disliked him. The daughters also found him overbearing and tyrannical. The second wife Milton married had little time to win over her stepdaughters, since she died in childbirth within two years.

By the time of his third marriage, his daughters were adolescents, angered by their father's demeaning and demanding treatment. They were forced to read to their blind parent in languages they didn't understand. He did not even inform them that he was marrying again. When they learned of the coming nuptials from a servant, middle daughter Mary is said to have remarked that it was interesting news, but more welcome would be news of his death.

In 1660 the restoration of the Stuart line of kings left Milton in dire circumstances. Because of his blindness, and perhaps the intercession

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