Lycidas Poetry and Death Essay - 3788 Words

Lycidas: Poetry and Death Living in a period of important religious and cultural flux, John Miltons poetry reflects the many influences he found both in history and in the contemporary world. With a vast knowledge of literature from the classical world of Greek and Roman culture, Milton often looked back to more ancient times as a means of enriching his works. At other times, however, he relies on his strong Christian beliefs for creating spiritually compelling themes and deeply religious imagery. Despite the seemingly conflicting nature of these two polarized sources of inspiration, Milton somehow found a way of bridging the gap between a pagan and a Christian world, often weaving them together into one overpowering†¦show more content†¦To do this, Milton turned to the pastoral elegy, a classically rich style of poetry found throughout literary history and most often associated with just such a topic. This was presumably a natural choice for Milton, as James H. Hanford says, since Miltons familiarit y with poetry of this kind in English, Latin, Italian, and Greek made him recognize the pastoral as one of the natural modes of literary expression, sanctioned by classic practice (32). Going back to such masters as the Greek superior genius Theocritus and Virgil, the famous Latin poet, Milton clearly found himself employing a literary form with its roots in a world of almost exclusively pagan beliefs (32;35). Even with later Christian forms, pastorals relied on the ancients for their conventional characteristics. From Virgils time forth, conventionality in setting†¦is a marked characteristic of the pastoral that employed archetypal shepherds as its essential trait, and Milton hardly strays from the standard form in his work (40). This long-lived tradition of pastorals, then, immersed Milton in a surrounding of rich images and important mythological figures, taking him back in time to an age far removed from his own. With this in mind, Milton begins Lycidas in an exclusively, and seemingly appropriate, classicalShow MoreRelatedEssay on Imagery in Lycidas893 Words   |  4 Pages Imagery in Lycidas Lycidas, a poem written by John Milton as a memorial to Edward King, a classmate at Cambridge, reflects Miltons reverence for nature, his admiration of Greek Mythology, and his deeply ingrained Christian belief system. In Lycidas, Milton combines powerful images from nature and Greek Mythology along with Biblical references in order to ease the pain associated with the premature death of King. King drowns at sea in the prime of his life and Milton is left to make senseRead MoreLycidas1529 Words   |  7 PagesWhat Happens in â€Å"Lycidas† 1–5 The poet complains that he is unready (= â€Å"denial vain, and coy excuse†) 6–36 No matter, Lycidas was a poet and his death must not pass without song. I too shall die one day and want someone to sing for me. 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