Occasions, Impulses, and the Sense of Vocation: from ‘Arcades’ to ‘Lycidas’

Abstract

The period following Cambridge formed a distinctive stage of development in Milton’s life. The great majority of his university peers took orders soon after reaching the required age, twenty-four. Although he had been destined for the church, Milton declined to follow the crowd, deciding that the heroic pursuit of education would take him well beyond the conventional boundaries of study and require further uninterrupted time. As a regent he could have resided still at Cambridge. Rather, he chose an environment more domestic and less subject to distraction:

At my father’s house in the country, to which he had retired to pass the rest of his days, I dedicated myself to reading Greek and Latin authors, in complete leisure, though sometimes exchanging the country for the city, either to buy books or to learn something new in mathematics or music, in which I then delighted. Having passed five years in this way, I had the curiosity, after the death of my mother, to see foreign countries (Y iv 613–14)