WorkJohn Milton

“Sonnet 19 ["When I consider how my light is spent"]”

Sonnet 19 ["When I consider how my light is spent"] (composed c. 1652-55; published in Poems &c. upon Several Occasions, 1673), Inferred

John Milton (1608–1674) · composed c. 1652-55; published in Poems &c. upon Several Occasions, 1673

InferredFuller deliberately inverts the acceptance of Milton's closing line ('They also serve who only stand and wait') to assert she cannot passively wait. Milton's Sonnet 19 ('When I consider how my light is spent') was written c. 1652-55 during his blindness and first published in Poems &c. upon Several Occasions (London: Tho.

QuotedRead

Documented 1841

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1841—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p200

quoted · read

“To stand and wait, I cannot.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Inferred Fuller deliberately inverts the acceptance of Milton's closing line ('They also serve who only stand and wait') to assert she cannot passively wait. Milton's Sonnet 19 ('When I consider how my light is spent') was written c. 1652-55 during his blindness and first published in Poems &c. upon Several Occasions (London: Tho.