“Cambridge... for Seven Years” 1625–1632Milton took some pride in having preserved his virginity at Cambridge, motivated
by religious duty and the high idealism he voiced in the Apology.^97 Some of his
poems (Elegies I and VII, and the Italian sonnets) had staged an awareness and
imagination of erotic impulses not acted upon, and Prolusions VI and VII defend
such deferral. In this valediction to Cambridge, Milton puts on hold the problem of
the place of love and sex in his life as scholar and poet. He does, however, envisage
other special pleasures for the scholar, notably friendship – with reference, it seems,
to his own experience with a few but choice friends:
The chief part of human happiness is derived from the society of one’s fellows and the
formation of friendships.... I admit that the man who is almost entirely absorbed and
immersed in study... is less expert in the nicer formalities of social life. But if such a
man once forms a worthy and congenial friendship, there is none who cultivates it
more assiduously. For what can we imagine more delightful and happy than those
conversations of learned and wise men. (CPW I, 295)If Milton could not yet attain to the “experience and practice” – and inspiration- he thought needful for high poetry, he could at least gain the necessary learning.
Prolusion VII makes clear that he expected to do so, imagining for himself a de-
lightful life of “cultured and liberal leisure” chiefly devoted to study. Drawing a
sharp contrast with the futile university regimen, he insists on the importance of
leisure, self-directed study, solitude, and pleasure for the “development and well-
being of the mind” and the growth of a poet, citing his own recent experience as
evidence:
I can myself call to witness the woods and rivers and the beloved village elms, under
whose shade I enjoyed in the summer just passed (if I may tell the secrets of goddesses)
such sweet intercourse with the Muses, as I still remember with delight. There I too,
amid rural scenes and woodland solitudes, felt that I had enjoyed a season of growth in
a life of seclusion. (CPW I, 289)He means to enjoy again the solitude he had come increasingly to value as the
proper milieu for both scholarship and poetry.^98 In that retirement he will immerse
himself in all the areas of learning Cambridge ignored, and court the Muses.
During Lent term Milton supplicated for his Master’s degree. To receive it he
had again to subscribe to the three Articles of Religion, and he was still willing to
do so.^99 He graduated Master of Arts cum laude at the commencement of July 3,
1632, one of 207 Bachelors from the several colleges, and the first of the 27 students
from Christ’s to sign the graduation book – probably a recognition of his standing.
In the Second Defence (1654) he insists (answering a libellous accusation and eliding
his earlier problems) that he left Cambridge with the general respect of the college
and the regret of the fellows: