Milton

1
Miltons Lycidas

• ENGL 203/513/622
• Dr. Fike

2
Milton and Poetry

• A good example of Eliots conception of tradition
  and the individual talent the past is present
  in the poem (classical and Christian).
• Highly allusive Literature of the past is
  simultaneous in a sense.
• Literary history sparks the individual talent to
  achieve something unique, new, and distinctive.

3
Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent

• Tradition is a matter of much wider
  significance. It cannot be inherited. It
  involves, in the first place, the historical
  sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to
  anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his
  twenty-fifth year and the historical sense
  involves a perception, not only of the pastness
  of the past, but of its presence the historical
  sense compels a man to write not merely with his
  own generation in his bones, but with a feeling
  that the whole of the literature of Europe from
  Homer and within it the whole of the literature
  of his own country has a simultaneous existence
  and composes a simultaneous order. This
  historical sense, which is a sense of the
  timeless as well as of the temporal and of the
  timeless and of the temporal together, is what
  makes a writer traditional. And it is at the
  same time what makes a writer most acutely
  conscious of his place in time, of his own
  contemporaneity.

4
Poets Life

• Virgil set the model
• Pastoral (Oaten Flute, 34 Oate, 88)
• Then epic
• Milton is following this pattern, bursting on the
  scene to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, /
  And with forcd fingers rude (4). Humble,
  right?
• Just like The Reason of Church-Government
  urgent reason hath pluckt from me by an abortive
  and foredated discovery (p. 924, left).
• And yetsee the next slide.

5
The Voice of God?

• Line 1, Yet once more cf. Hebrews 1226-28
  His voice then shook the earth but now he has
  promised, Yet once more I will shake not only
  the earth but also the heaven.
• Suddenly, not so humble!

6
Factoids

• The poem is a monody a dirge or lament or
  funeral song by a single speaker. This is not
  totally accurate because it contains multiple
  voices.
• It is a pastoral elegy
• Pastoral a rural poem that comments on aspects
  of civilized life.
• Elegy an expression of grief related to the
  death of a friend typical elements are praise,
  lament, and consolation.

7
Elements of the Pastoral Elegy

• Invocation of the muse (15)
• Expression of grief felt at the loss of a friend
  (37-49)
• Procession of mourners (85ff.)
• Digression (on the church 108-31)
• Consolationstuff happens, but everything turns
  out for the best (165-85) consolationstrengthene
  d belief in God
• Poet as shepherd (shepherd someone who guards
  sheep a pastor in the religious sense)
• Praise of the dead shepherd (25-36)
• Pathetic fallacy (39-41)nature is given human
  qualities
• Questioning of the nymphs (50ff.)
• Flower symbolism (64-84)

8
The Name Lycidas

• Lycidas is a shepherd in Theocrituss seventh
  Idyll.
• He faces death by drowning in Lucans Pharsalia.
  
• He complains against social injustice in Virgils
  ninth eclogue.
• He brings gifts to Mary and her child in
  Sannazaros piscatory (fish) eclogues.

9
Edward King (1612-1637)

• King was 4 years younger than Milton, who was
  born in 1608.
• King was admitted to Christs College at
  Cambridge in 1626 (Milton, in 1625).
• King drowned at sea in 1637 It was that fatall
  and perfidious Bark / Built in th eclipse, and
  riggd with curses dark, / That sunk so low that
  sacred head of thine (100-02).
• Key points about King
• Piety
• Erudition
• Poetic talent

10
Anthology

• Miltons poem was part of an anthology of poems
  that people wrote in honor of Edward King.
• There were both Latin and English poems. Miltons
  is the last one in the English section.

11
The Shipwreck

• According to the Latin epigraph prefacing the
  commemorative volume, the ship in which he
  was, having struck a rock not far from the
  British shore and being ruptured by the shock,
  he, while the other passengers were fruitlessly
  busy about their mortal lives, having fallen
  forward on his knees, and breathing a life which
  was immortal, in the act of prayer going down
  with the vessel, rendered up his soul to God,
  Aug. 10, 1637, aged 25.

12
Other Relevant Deaths

• Ben Jonson died the same month as King.
• Miltons mother died in April of the same year.
• Plague 1636-37.
• POINT These deaths added to the intensity of
  Miltons involvement in the shipwreck.
• The Latin motto in the 1637 collection If you
  reckon rightly shipwreck is everywhere.
• In other words, death is universal. Therefore,
  it was natural for Milton to think about his own
  death.

13
Outline of the Poem(label these sections in your
book)

• Introduction 1-24
• Meditation on true fame 25-84
• Happy section, 25-36
• Lament for Ls death, 37-49
• Regret that the nymphs could not protect him,
  50-63
• Risk of death before great work is completed,
  64-84
• Prophecy of the run of the corrupted clergy
  85-131
• Bridge/transition 132-64
• Deification of Lycidas 165-84
• Conclusion 186-93

14
Timeframe

• Line 26 Poem begins at daybreak.
• Lines 29-31 Evening star sinks.
• Line 168 The day star sinks. Now it is
  twilight.
• POINT The timeframe parallels a day in the life
  of a shepherd.

15
Movements within the Poem

• Lamentation to triumph
• Low to high
• Past to future
• Pagan/classical to Christian (pastoral world,
  natural world, Christian world, the blessed
  kingdom). Again
• Classical Sisters of the sacred well (15)
  the tears of the muses (poems) are in the
  background the Hebrus River, into which
  Orpheuss dismembered body was thrown by the
  Maenads, who embody the dark forces of nature and
  savagery that so easily overcome the fragile
  civilizing arts (Lewalski 83).
• Natural the sea that drowned King human
  tearssalty like the ocean.
• Christian world Christs walking on the water
  at 173 baptism.
• The blessed kingdom the other streams of
  paradise (174). Now the tear is forever wiped
  from Ls eyes.
• Note fresh water, good salt water, bad.

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First Verse Paragraph

• Lets read it.
• What do you notice about it?

17
Next Passages

• Lines 64-84 What is Miltons beef here?
• Lines 102-31 What is Miltons beef here?

18
Miltons Two Beefs

• DeathMilton has lost his friend, and now the
  poet worries that death might snuff out his own
  artistic future.
• That is why he includes a section on fame (70).
  If youre going to die young, why not sport with
  Amaryllis in the shade?
• Milton rails against blind fury with th
  abhorred shears (75).
• Milton transfers the scissors from Fates (Clotho
  spins Lachesis cards Atropos cuts) to the
  Furies (avenging spirits with keen, wide-open,
  searching eyes to help them find their victims).
  Ms furies are blind--this creates a sense of
  cruel randomness.
• ClergyMilton has St. Peter rail against
  religious corruption.
• Line 110, Two massy Keyes he bore of metals
  twain cf. Matthew 1619 I will give you
  the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever
  you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
  whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in
  heaven. Cf. PL 2.327-28.

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More on Death

• A procession of mourners
• Neptunes herald Triton, 89
• Hippotades (Aeolus), 96
• Camus (the spirit of Cambridge, a reverend
  sire, 103)
• St. Peter The Pilot of the Galilean lake, 109

20
More on the False Clergy

• Line 115, Creep and intrude, and climb into the
  fold cf. John 101 Truly, truly, I say to
  you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the
  door but climbs in by another way, that man is a
  thief and a robber but he who enters by the door
  is the shepherd of the sheep.
• Line 118, And shove away the worthy bidden
  guest cf. Matthew 228 they that were
  bidden to the feast were not worthy.

21
False Clergy Blind mouths! (119)

• The word bishop comes from the Greek episkopeo,
  one who oversees. The worst thing that could
  happen to a bishop, therefore, is blindness.
• Line 119, Isaiah 5610-57.1 His watchmen are
  blindThe shepherds also have no
  understanding..The righteous man perishes.
• The word pastor is from the Latin pascere, to
  pasture or to feed. The Latin pastor means
  shepherd. Starvation will result if one turns
  from care and feeding and becomes a mouth.
• POINT Blindness and ravenousness. Blind
  bishops and greedy pastors The hungry Sheep
  look up, and are not fed (125).
• The result grim Wolf with privy paw (128)
  the Roman Catholic Church advances.
• Line 128, re. wolves, cf. PL 4.182-92 and
  12.507-14. The arms of St. Ignatius Loyola
  (founder of the Jesuits) included two gray wolves.

22
Miltons Source

• From Virgil's 3rd Eclogue
• Menalcas. Poor sheep, ever a luckless flock!
  while the master clings by Neaera and dreads lest
  she prefer me before him. This hireling shepherd
  milks the sheep twice an hour the juice is
  stolen from the flock, the milk from the lambs.
• ........
• Thou him in singing? or hadst thou ever a
  waxen-bound pipe? Wert not wont in the
  cross-roads, blockhead, to mangle a wretched tune
  on a grating straw?

23
Ugliest Line in the Poem

• And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
  / Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched
  straw (124-25).
• Cacophony harsh, unpleasant sounds (vs.
  euphony, pleasing sounds).
• POINT The line acts out Miltons disgust for
  corrupted religious figures.

24
Punishment that two-handed engine (130)

• The two houses of parliament
• The temporal and Spiritual authority of the Court
  of High Commission
• The destructive power of the imminent civil war
• Puritan zeal
• Combined forces of England and Scotland or of
  France and Spain
• The Catholic Church
• The pastoral staff or sheep-hook
• The keys of Heaven and Hell given to St. Peter
  (Matthew 1619)
• The lock on St. Peters door
• St. Peters sword (Matthew 2051, John 1810)
• The Sharp two-edged Sword of the Johannine
  vision (Revelation 116, 212)
• The Sword of Divine Justice (Ezekiel 219-17),
  especially as wielded by Michael with huge
  two-handed sway (PL 6.251)
• The axe in general, especially the one laid unto
  the root of the trees (Matthew 310, Luke 39)
• The rod of Christs anger
• The Word of God
• The Son of God
• The scythe of Time
• Man in his dual capacity of labour and prayer
• The iron flail of Talus in FQ V

25
But Implied Hopefulness

• Mention of Alpheus and Arethusa frames the
  section on the clergy.
• Alpheus (imperfection) loves Arethusa (virtue).
• Therefore, Milton implies that goodness will
  triumph over corruption.

26
Another Interpretation

• Arethusa (muse of pastoral poetry) represents
  nobility and justice. Alpheus represents truth.
• Alpheuss waters pass unpolluted through the
  ocean this demonstrates that truth is
  incorruptible.
• Milton Encyclopedia 57 Arethusa is called upon
  after a reference to the purity and perfection of
  Joves justice, while Alpheus is called upon
  after the two-handed engine delivers from a
  hostile world the shrinking stream of those who
  pursue the ideal.

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Quick Summary

• Miltons beefs death and religious corruption.
• Those who abuse religious positions will be
  punished.
• Comfort/consolation
• Milton exorcizes his grief.
• He focuses on true fame in heaven.
• He takes comfort in the hope of heaven.
• Good will win out.
• This inspires him to move on to fresh woods, and
  pastures new (his upcoming trip to Italy in the
  last line of the poem).

28
Final Passage

• Lines 172-end.
• What does Milton say about Lycidas/King?
• What does Milton say about himself in the last
  verse paragraph? END