“Seeing Foreign Parts” 1638–1639of his youth, to Italy, to neo-Latin poetry, and to pastoral. He distills the meaning
of past experiences and defines his future poetic course in the most precise terms
yet. He ends this meditation on vocation, loss, and the experience of Italy with a
firm resolution to take on the great responsibility of writing an English heroic
poem addressed to his entire nation. This, he now believes, must be the major
work God intends for him.