How can Milton know that he was really and truly called by God to be a great poet until he writes something - it's not a bad question - until he has something actually to show for his talent?

弥尔顿怎么知道他是不是真的被,上帝选中了去做一个伟大的诗人,除非他真的创作出点儿什么--这是一个不坏的问题,-直到他真有可以证明自己才能的作品？

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

Crushing your computer, or whatever it is that you do as you write the great American novel.

砸碎电脑，随便你想怎样,当你创作最伟大的美国小说时。

耶鲁公开课 - 死亡课程节选

But Milton portrays himself as a laborer here, a poet who by labor and intense study actually has to work to produce the great poem. Milton's divine vocation, his calling, seems in this light to be something like a vocation in the modern sense: it's a job that exacts work or labor.

但弥尔顿把他自己描绘成一个工人,一个只能通过努力学习来创作出,伟大诗歌的诗人，弥尔顿的神圣的使命，他的天职，就此而论就像现代意义上的职业了：,一份要求工作和劳动的职业。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

Whatever you think those are. Here, you might imagine different people disagreeing about-- oh, but throw in something--but if what you want to do is write the great American novel, then you've got the experience of staying up late at night not knowing how to make the plot work out, crushing pieces of paper and throwing them away.

你能想到的都在里面，可能有人不同意-,插入某某东西，比如你想,创作最伟大的美国小说，于是你获得熬夜的体验,纠结于如何构建情节，撕碎稿纸，扔在一边。

耶鲁公开课 - 死亡课程节选