“Due and timely obedience”: Milton’s Self-Disciplinary Poetics
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This paper explores the ways in which Milton’s “due and timely obedience” informs his early poems, especially sonnet 7 and “The Passion.” “Due and timely obedience,” a phrase that originally appears in Milton’s defense of his delay in taking ordination, is more complex and nuanced than it first appears. By making an inquiry into its theological and aesthetic resonances, I argue that “due and timely obedience” is central to Milton’s vocational development. With a self-referential (mis)reading of the parables of the talents and of the vineyard, Milton formulates the idea of “due and timely obedience,”which envisions the dynamic interplay of divine will and volition. By showing how he grows into a humble and patient poet able to curb his impulse to premature action in accordance with time and the will of Heaven, sonnet 7 paradigmatically illustrates the self-disciplinary aspect of “due and timely obedience” and how theology and poetry are inseparable in Milton’s successful poetry writing. Milton’s self-disciplinary poetics of “due and timely obedience” develops not without tension, however. Directing attention to “The Passion,”Milton’s self-acknowledged failure, I examine the extent to which Milton fails to invest his talent “due and timely” and how this poem-as-failure serves meaningfully to dramatize Milton’s vocational development in the 1645 Poems. Milton’s Passion poem, the aesthetic failure of which is interwoven with the young poet’s failure to resist the temptation of premature action, opens a window through which we see Milton wrestle with how to invest his talent as a due response to divine will. Followed by sonnet 7 and “Lycidas” in the 1645 Poems, “The Passion,” despite its intrinsic shortcoming, plays an important role in the dynamic evolution of Milton’s self-disciplinary poetics of “due and timely obedience.”
Abstract
This paper explores the ways in which Milton’s “due and timely obedience” informs his early poems, especially sonnet 7 and “The Passion.” “Due and timely obedience,” a phrase that originally appears in Milton’s defense of his delay in taking ordination, is more complex and nuanced than it first appears. By making an inquiry into its theological and aesthetic resonances, I argue that “due and timely obedience” is central to Milton’s vocational development. With a self-referential (mis)reading of the parables of the talents and of the vineyard, Milton formulates the idea of “due and timely obedience,”which envisions the dynamic interplay of divine will and volition. By showing how he grows into a humble and patient poet able to curb his impulse to premature action in accordance with time and the will of Heaven, sonnet 7 paradigmatically illustrates the self-disciplinary aspect of “due and timely obedience” and how theology and poetry are inseparable in Milton’s successful poetry writing. Milton’s self-disciplinary poetics of “due and timely obedience” develops not without tension, however. Directing attention to “The Passion,”Milton’s self-acknowledged failure, I examine the extent to which Milton fails to invest his talent “due and timely” and how this poem-as-failure serves meaningfully to dramatize Milton’s vocational development in the 1645 Poems. Milton’s Passion poem, the aesthetic failure of which is interwoven with the young poet’s failure to resist the temptation of premature action, opens a window through which we see Milton wrestle with how to invest his talent as a due response to divine will. Followed by sonnet 7 and “Lycidas” in the 1645 Poems, “The Passion,” despite its intrinsic shortcoming, plays an important role in the dynamic evolution of Milton’s self-disciplinary poetics of “due and timely obedience.”
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