Author: Ano Sensei
Format: Video
Related content:
- • Milton: Lycidas – Analysis 2 (Video)
- • Milton: Lycidas – Reading (Video)
"Lycidas", by John Milton. An analysis. Part 1: The elegy that isn't!
The second part of the analysis is here: https://youtu.be/-OyvjIs4qKU
Milton’s “Lycidas” is not an easy poem. Ostensibly, it’s a pastoral ...elegy, or monody, written on the occasion of the death of a friend, Edward King, by drowning, but the imagery and language are so contrived and artificial that we’re left wondering whether Milton cared very much about Edward King or was really interested in writing about him at all.
Indeed, it’s possible that Milton and King never even knew each other. Milton describes King as a “learned friend” in a manuscript note on the poem, but this may just be poetic convention, like the passages speaking of how they were both “nurs'd upon the self-same hill, / Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill”, or the songs Milton and King sang while the fauns and satyrs danced – or, indeed, the name of “Lycidas” which the poet bestows on the dead man.
Samuel Johnson, in his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, published in 1783, commented that the poem is “not to be considered as the effusion of real passion”, and if we do think of it in that way then we can only see it as a complete failure, since the poem at no point ever really convinces us that Milton feels any deep or sincere grief.
On the contrary, the only genuine emotion expressed in the poem is Milton’s anger and outrage at the corrupt clergy, who care only for themselves, and neglect their duties towards the “hungry sheep” – that is to say, the congregation of churchgoers to whom they should be giving spiritual guidance and support.
Rather than approaching Lycidas as an elegy, then, it makes more sense to think of it as an attack on the Church under the guise of an elegy.
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12 Comments
I agree. The main thing Milton clearly feels passionate about here is the dystopia of paid religionists pretending to worship God but deep down worshipping something else, maybe Mammon? Considering the poem was written in the mid seventeenth century, I am struck by how relevant to our contemporary setting is Milton’s aversion to clergy corruption. There again, public distaste for the hypocrisy of theocracy is a timeless theme; is perpetually relevant.
“Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee” wrote William Wordsworth in 1802.
Yes indeed! The long slow waning of Milton’s star perhaps says more about society than about him.
@anosenseiI feel that Milton is not primarily mourning the loss of Edward King, per se, but mourning more the loss of an archetype of a genuine shepherd, as King might have been, or at least had promise of becoming, as opposed to a fake shepherd, a hireling.
A bit of word play here, but it is not lost on me that the Greek word for shepherd is ‘poimen’ which looks similar to, and sounds simikar to, the Greek word for poem, ‘poiema,’ thus, Lycidas could perhaps be seen as a poiema about a poimen.
@timothyallen6457 “mourning more the loss of an archetype of a genuine shepherd, as King might have been”
Yes, I think there’s a case to be made for that. I’m less persuaded about the wordplay!
I did have plans for a third video, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get round to it!
Thank you Ano Sensei!
You are very welcome!
King was Milton’s best Friend. King was Born in Boyle Abbey, my home town. Visit People and Places of Boyle on Facebook for some more history of the historical town.
Scholars are divided on this one. Apart from the manuscript heading to the poem (which may be there simply for convention), there’s no hard evidence that they actually knew one another at all. The idea that they were close friends comes from Edward Philips’ account of 1695, over a quarter of a century after Milton’s death. There’s quite a strong argument for the view that Milton wrote the whole poem pretty much tongue in cheek (see, e.g., Gadaleto, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322328092_Who_would_not_sing_for_Lycidas_Milton%27s_Satirical_Reform_of_the_Justa_Edouardo_King).
There are several good online accounts of the debate, e.g., https://literariness.org/2020/07/08/analysis-of-john-miltons-lycidas/.
This issue is tied to the larger – and also hotly-debated – one of Milton’s radicalization. Was he always a rebel? At what stage, precisely, did he become disenchanted with the Church of England as it was under Archbishop Laud? King – along with most of the other contributors to the collection of poems dedicated to his memory, and in which “Lycidas” was published – was a supporter of the Laudian Church. Was Milton at this stage still a moderate supporter of Laud, embracing the values of Edward King when he wrote the poem in 1637? Or was he consciously using the occasion of King’s death to expose the corruption of the Church of England, as he claims in the second (1645) publication of “Lycidas”?
Unless some stunning new evidence comes up, I don’t suppose we’ll never really get to the truth of the matter. Please check the second video, if you haven’t done so (https://youtu.be/-OyvjIs4qKU), as the general historical context has a bearing on the question of whether King was truly a friend of Milton’s.
@anosensei Thank you for your reply. I have just discovered Milton and I am studying his life and works. My historical page led me to Milton’s elegy as I was researching King. He was Born in Boyle abbey. Please visit my Facebook group People and Places of Boyle. My home town is steeped in fantastic history so I put together a historical page. Thank you again.
@thomasjamesconnolly4350 Will do!
Amazing!
Thank you!