WEBVTT 00:01.840 --> 00:05.060 Professor John Rogers: The best way, 00:05.055 --> 00:09.035 I think, to introduce the central issues of this wonderful 00:09.040 --> 00:12.820 poem, "Lycidas," is to return to Milton's 00:12.816 --> 00:17.216 Comus. So yet once more -- and I promise this will 00:17.220 --> 00:21.690 be one of the last times that we look back at Milton's mask -- 00:21.694 --> 00:25.614 but yet once more, let's look at Comus. 00:25.610 --> 00:28.690 Now you will remember that the mask Comus was 00:28.689 --> 00:31.659 everywhere concerned with questions of the power of -- 00:31.656 --> 00:33.546 well, the strangely intertwined 00:33.545 --> 00:36.705 questions of the power of chastity on the one hand and the 00:36.705 --> 00:38.475 power of poetry on the other. 00:38.480 --> 00:42.500 The two brothers in the mask engaged in that philosophical 00:42.495 --> 00:45.235 debate about the force, or the strength, 00:45.242 --> 00:47.242 of virginity. The Second Brother, 00:47.244 --> 00:49.234 you'll remember, had taken what I take to be the 00:49.233 --> 00:51.863 perfectly reasonable position, the cautious position, 00:51.860 --> 00:55.050 that the Lady is in danger -- that she's a sitting duck, 00:55.050 --> 01:02.490 in fact, out there in the dangerous forest. 01:02.490 --> 01:05.710 According to the Second Brother, it's virtually 01:05.709 --> 01:08.999 impossible for a single, helpless maiden to pass 01:09.000 --> 01:12.220 uninjured in this wild, surrounding waste. 01:12.219 --> 01:14.149 Now the Elder Brother, we remember, 01:14.146 --> 01:16.636 hastily dismissed his brother's pessimism, 01:16.640 --> 01:20.330 and then he insisted that the Lady's virginity was fully 01:20.327 --> 01:24.487 capable of protecting her from any such physical attack.Now 01:24.485 --> 01:28.165 to the extent that this discussion is actually about the 01:28.173 --> 01:32.803 virginity of the Second Brother and the Elder Brother's sister, 01:32.800 --> 01:38.190 it seems, I think, to border on the ridiculous; 01:38.190 --> 01:40.600 but the debate, I think, we have to take 01:40.598 --> 01:42.638 seriously. It's an important one for 01:42.636 --> 01:45.536 Milton, and it's important because it touches on a lot of 01:45.540 --> 01:47.200 more consequential questions. 01:47.200 --> 01:53.350 I'm thinking of the general problem of the abstraction of 01:53.348 --> 01:57.628 virtue, an abstract notion of virtue. 01:57.629 --> 02:02.759 Think of all the questions that all of us at some point or other 02:02.762 --> 02:05.372 tend to associate with virtue. 02:05.370 --> 02:09.820 Is virtuous behavior repaid with some kind of ultimate good? 02:09.819 --> 02:13.589 Are we rewarded for our virtue and for our virtuous deeds? 02:13.590 --> 02:18.600 Are we recompensed in some way for all of those sacrifices that 02:18.596 --> 02:21.176 we make in the name of virtue? 02:21.180 --> 02:24.970 These are questions that Milton will never stop asking and that 02:24.971 --> 02:27.541 he will never stop attempting to answer. 02:27.539 --> 02:31.419 The position that Milton -- this is how I like to read it -- 02:31.417 --> 02:35.427 the position that Milton would like to be able to take on this 02:35.425 --> 02:39.425 question of virtue's reward is formulated by the Elder Brother 02:39.434 --> 02:40.884 in Comus. 02:40.879 --> 02:44.059 I'm thinking of the passage near the bottom of page 103 in 02:44.057 --> 02:46.557 the Hughes. This is Comus, 02:46.555 --> 02:49.225 line 588 -- the Elder Brother. 02:49.230 --> 02:52.390 The brother says: Virtue may be assail'd 02:52.386 --> 02:57.066 but never hurt, Surpris'd by unjust force but not enthrall'd, 02:57.069 --> 03:00.549 Yea even that which mischief meant most harm 03:00.552 --> 03:03.502 Shall in the happy trial prove most glory. 03:03.500 --> 03:08.950 But evil on itself shall back recoil And mix no more with 03:08.949 --> 03:13.309 goodness, when at last Gather'd like scum, 03:13.310 --> 03:18.360 and settl'd to itself, It shall be in eternal restless 03:18.357 --> 03:21.897 change Self-fed and self-consum'd; 03:21.900 --> 03:27.620 if this fail, The pillar'd firmament is rott'nness, And 03:27.622 --> 03:31.132 earth's base built on stubble. 03:31.129 --> 03:33.339 Virtue invariably protects itself. 03:33.340 --> 03:37.780 Virtue is invariably rewarded with glory and evil -- and this 03:37.784 --> 03:42.084 is the flip side of the coin -- evil is always punished. 03:42.080 --> 03:46.830 In this amazing image, it's gathered like scum in some 03:46.829 --> 03:51.849 eternal cesspool where it's self-fed and self-consumed -- 03:51.847 --> 03:55.847 problem solved! The Elder Brother continues, 03:55.849 --> 03:59.379 though, "if this fail" -- by which he means, 03:59.381 --> 04:03.901 if virtue does not in every single instance triumph over 04:03.898 --> 04:06.248 evil, then this is a world whose 04:06.245 --> 04:09.115 heaven, whose pillared firmament, is rotten to the 04:09.120 --> 04:10.600 core, and whose base, 04:10.600 --> 04:13.970 or whose very foundation, is nothing but stubble. 04:13.969 --> 04:17.839 If virtue fails to triumph over evil, then what? 04:17.839 --> 04:22.319 Then this simply isn't a world worth living in. 04:22.319 --> 04:26.459 That's what I take the Elder Brother to mean here.These 04:26.455 --> 04:31.855 are unquestionably strong words, and I think it's impossible for 04:31.859 --> 04:36.279 us to overestimate the weight of these words. 04:36.279 --> 04:39.949 The speech is more than just a pious bit of optimism like a lot 04:39.945 --> 04:42.715 of the speeches, in fact, that the other brother 04:42.724 --> 04:45.334 has given us. We have to confess that it's 04:45.333 --> 04:48.563 more than that. This speech is a challenge. 04:48.560 --> 04:52.260 The Elder Brother is challenging God to see to it 04:52.261 --> 04:57.121 that some kind of justice is actually effected on this earth; 04:57.120 --> 05:01.540 and so I'm going to be placing a particular amount of pressure 05:01.540 --> 05:05.960 on this passage because this is the first expression in Milton 05:05.961 --> 05:10.601 of a very particular kind of argument: a religious argument, 05:10.600 --> 05:13.970 and it's one that becomes central to all of Paradise 05:13.972 --> 05:16.732 Lost. The speech of the Elder 05:16.728 --> 05:18.788 Brothers is a theodicy. 05:18.790 --> 05:22.730 Theodicy is the term coined by the eighteenth-century 05:22.730 --> 05:25.810 philosopher Leibniz, and he applied this term 05:25.812 --> 05:29.782 theodicy to just that kind of philosophical sentiment 05:29.777 --> 05:32.127 that's implied by its etymology. 05:32.129 --> 05:36.989 The theodicy is an account of the justice (the dike) of 05:36.987 --> 05:38.657 God (theos). 05:38.660 --> 05:41.490 And so, to use the words with which Milton would begin 05:41.491 --> 05:44.671 Paradise Lost, a theodicy is an attempt "to 05:44.665 --> 05:48.205 justify the ways of God to men."Now for a lot of 05:48.207 --> 05:52.447 orthodox Christians in Milton's time -- and I think we can say 05:52.445 --> 05:56.745 the same for a lot of orthodox Christians in our own time -- to 05:56.752 --> 06:00.162 embark upon anything like a theodicy at all can be 06:00.156 --> 06:04.736 considered heretical, or at the very least heterodox. 06:04.740 --> 06:08.430 A theodicy can be seen as heretical or even blasphemous 06:08.425 --> 06:12.515 for the simple reason that it -- think of what it assumes. 06:12.519 --> 06:17.769 It assumes that the ways of God are in fact justifiable. 06:17.769 --> 06:22.159 A theodicy assumes that God's justice can be witnessed, 06:22.155 --> 06:25.805 that it can be accounted for here on earth. 06:25.810 --> 06:30.550 A theodicy assumes that things on earth actually make sense and 06:30.547 --> 06:34.747 that God's ways are ultimately rationally accessible, 06:34.750 --> 06:37.330 that they are comprehensible by human beings, 06:37.326 --> 06:40.016 and that God can in some way -- and this is, 06:40.019 --> 06:43.369 I think, the central implication of the Elder Brother 06:43.368 --> 06:47.168 here -- that God can in some way be held accountable for his 06:47.167 --> 06:49.747 actions. To justify the ways of God to 06:49.748 --> 06:53.548 men is essentially to put God on trial for the actions that he 06:53.551 --> 06:56.401 performs. Of course in the central test 06:56.398 --> 07:00.378 case this is what we all care about, for the unfortunate 07:00.377 --> 07:04.497 events that befall virtuous people.The next major poem 07:04.501 --> 07:08.341 that Milton writes after Comus is "Lycidas." 07:08.335 --> 07:13.395 You'll remember that Milton published Comus in 1637. 07:13.399 --> 07:17.439 It's 1637, later that same year, that Milton writes 07:17.440 --> 07:20.500 "Lycidas." In "Lycidas," Milton 07:20.495 --> 07:23.735 looks back at the Elder Brother's theodicy, 07:23.740 --> 07:28.530 and it's almost as if he's attempting to test its validity. 07:28.529 --> 07:32.089 You can figure Milton asking in this poem "Lycidas" if it's 07:32.092 --> 07:34.982 true: is it true what the Elder Brother said, 07:34.980 --> 07:39.780 that virtue is always rewarded and evil punished? 07:39.779 --> 07:42.949 Now "Lycidas," and this is undeniable, 07:42.946 --> 07:46.176 is ostensibly, and maybe more than ostensibly, 07:46.184 --> 07:49.924 an elegy. It's a poem about a death. 07:49.920 --> 07:54.700 It mourns the loss of a friend of Milton's from Cambridge. 07:54.699 --> 07:58.489 The young man was named Edward King, and he drowned in a 07:58.493 --> 08:02.493 shipwreck in the Irish Sea shortly before he took up orders 08:02.494 --> 08:05.534 as a minister for the Church of England. 08:05.529 --> 08:08.059 Like so many -- and I mentioned this before -- like so many of 08:08.063 --> 08:10.143 the young men studying with Milton in Cambridge, 08:10.139 --> 08:13.629 King was being prepared to pursue a career in the 08:13.629 --> 08:16.539 church.Now, and I don't think this is 08:16.536 --> 08:20.456 unimportant, King was also -- it would seem 08:20.461 --> 08:24.421 he was also a minor poet, an amateur poet. 08:24.420 --> 08:27.340 Like Milton, he wrote verses. 08:27.339 --> 08:31.879 There is nothing like a shred of evidence to suggest that 08:31.878 --> 08:35.118 Edward King had any talent whatsoever. 08:35.120 --> 08:37.330 Nonetheless, the fact that he attempted to 08:37.326 --> 08:39.476 be a poet, I think, is important here. 08:39.480 --> 08:42.640 Edward King, in fact, seems to have been 08:42.639 --> 08:47.099 sufficiently well liked or admired that when news of his 08:47.095 --> 08:50.455 death hit Cambridge, a group of his friends 08:50.455 --> 08:54.375 organized something like an anthology of poems in his honor. 08:54.380 --> 08:55.510 This is on the handout. 08:55.509 --> 09:00.379 The title of the book is Justa Eduardo King naufrago, 09:00.379 --> 09:05.249 Obsequies on Edward King, Lost at Sea or Drowned. 09:05.250 --> 09:10.320 We have no evidence that King was a particularly close friend 09:10.320 --> 09:14.800 of Milton's, but nonetheless Milton -- as an ambitious 09:14.800 --> 09:19.920 literary figure in college, he was asked to contribute some 09:19.919 --> 09:24.029 verses to the anthology, and "Lycidas" is the 09:24.032 --> 09:26.212 product of that request. 09:26.210 --> 09:30.640 We shouldn't be surprised that Milton has to be compelled to 09:30.638 --> 09:33.798 write this poem. He's still in that awkward 09:33.797 --> 09:38.107 phase of unreadiness and under preparation.Now readers have 09:38.106 --> 09:41.856 always seemed to have agreed that Milton's "Lycidas" 09:41.860 --> 09:44.710 is an enormously admirable poem, 09:44.710 --> 09:49.050 but for a few hundred years now there has been a controversy 09:49.054 --> 09:52.224 over how admirable Milton's "Lycidas" is, 09:52.220 --> 09:54.360 specifically as an elegy. 09:54.360 --> 09:56.710 The poem is obviously magisterial. 09:56.710 --> 10:01.880 It's moving and just about everyone concedes that at many 10:01.876 --> 10:06.946 junctures it's extraordinarily learned -- it's obviously 10:06.951 --> 10:10.551 learned, but it's also very moving. 10:10.549 --> 10:14.109 This is the question now: is it properly elegiac? 10:14.110 --> 10:18.020 Is "Lycidas" an appropriate expression of grief over the 10:18.023 --> 10:21.053 death of Edward King, and furthermore, 10:21.054 --> 10:25.944 does it console others for their grief over Edward King's 10:25.935 --> 10:28.285 death? Now this is a debate that fits 10:28.290 --> 10:30.750 into the same category, as far as I'm concerned, 10:30.750 --> 10:33.630 as the one between the elder and the Second Brother. 10:33.629 --> 10:39.199 This is a debate that will forever and forever be fruitless 10:39.200 --> 10:41.890 because it's unanswerable. 10:41.889 --> 10:44.919 Nonetheless, I still think there's something 10:44.919 --> 10:48.439 about this controversy surrounding this poem -- the 10:48.442 --> 10:52.672 poem as an elegy -- that we need to take as instructive; 10:52.669 --> 10:55.729 because if Milton's "Lycidas" isn't an 10:55.731 --> 10:59.351 expression of grief over the death of Edward King, 10:59.350 --> 11:05.120 then just what -- this is what we have to ask -- then just what 11:05.122 --> 11:07.452 is it an expression of? 11:07.450 --> 11:12.550 So let us begin our examination of this question 11:12.549 --> 11:16.949 with the consideration of the poem's form. 11:16.950 --> 11:20.650 Now the most distinguishing feature of Milton's elegy is the 11:20.648 --> 11:22.778 fact that it's a pastoral elegy. 11:22.779 --> 11:27.759 It engages the ancient art of pastoral poetry initiated and 11:27.761 --> 11:31.971 made famous by the great Greek poet Theocritus, 11:31.970 --> 11:36.350 which was later imitated by Moscus and then finally by the 11:36.348 --> 11:40.648 Roman poet Virgil in his celebrated pastoral eclogues. 11:40.649 --> 11:44.979 You can see on the handout those poems by those classical 11:44.976 --> 11:48.446 authors that Milton's "Lycidas" is most 11:48.453 --> 11:51.523 indebted to. The pastoral elegy is clearly 11:51.517 --> 11:55.297 one of the most stylized and most self-consciously artificial 11:55.297 --> 11:57.247 of all of the poetic genres. 11:57.250 --> 12:01.390 The poet of a pastoral elegy usually represents himself as a 12:01.394 --> 12:05.824 shepherd, a shepherd mourning the death of a fellow shepherd, 12:05.820 --> 12:09.400 and he often explains that the death of his shepherd friend is 12:09.401 --> 12:12.691 exerting a magical effect on the entire natural world. 12:12.690 --> 12:14.140 This is called the pathetic fallacy. 12:14.139 --> 12:17.589 The trees, the rocks, and the streams are all weeping 12:17.587 --> 12:20.567 for the loss of the shepherd-speaker's beloved 12:20.571 --> 12:23.151 companion. It's at this point in the 12:23.149 --> 12:25.389 pastoral elegy -- the conventional, 12:25.392 --> 12:29.422 stereotypical pastoral elegy -- that the poet-shepherd sings a 12:29.416 --> 12:32.866 mournful song. He sings a song in which he 12:32.874 --> 12:37.534 recalls all of those happy days that he had spent with his 12:37.528 --> 12:41.688 shepherd friend in the countryside.So we have in 12:41.692 --> 12:47.002 the pastoral elegy a generic form that's highly predictable. 12:47.000 --> 12:49.520 Not only now, but, I think, 12:49.524 --> 12:54.964 on some level it has always struck some of its readers as 12:54.960 --> 12:58.220 ludicrous. We're not being merely 12:58.218 --> 13:02.278 churlish, I think, if we want to ask why someone 13:02.275 --> 13:06.155 would want to write a poem in such a form. 13:06.159 --> 13:10.389 As you can imagine, it had long been out of fashion 13:10.389 --> 13:12.249 in Milton's own day. 13:12.250 --> 13:16.330 The pastoral genre in fact even for Theocritus, 13:16.329 --> 13:20.319 its inventor, was always highly artificial. 13:20.320 --> 13:23.950 Theocritus knew no more about shepherds or sheep or 13:23.951 --> 13:28.021 shepherdesses or nymphs and satyrs than you or I know and 13:28.018 --> 13:31.788 later urban poets -- and Theocritus was an urban poet 13:31.794 --> 13:36.304 --later urban poets like Virgil or Milton (Milton our Londoner) 13:36.297 --> 13:39.927 knew even less than Theocritus, we have to assume. 13:39.929 --> 13:44.389 It's almost as if the entire point of a pastoral is that it 13:44.393 --> 13:49.013 is set in a world that neither the urbane poet nor the urbane 13:49.011 --> 13:53.551 reader has actually any real experience with.Another way 13:53.551 --> 13:57.321 into this problem: let's look at the comments that 13:57.322 --> 13:59.632 Dr. Johnson made about Milton's 13:59.631 --> 14:03.711 "Lycidas" in the eighteenth century. 14:03.710 --> 14:07.210 This is reading from the packet assigned for today, 14:07.210 --> 14:11.480 and I'm going to ask you to do what you can to get through the 14:11.480 --> 14:14.140 biography of Milton in the packet, 14:14.139 --> 14:18.329 as well as the notes on Milton's poetry that we have 14:18.332 --> 14:20.472 from Dr. Samuel Johnson. 14:20.470 --> 14:24.110 Make sure you all have done that by the midterm. 14:24.110 --> 14:25.540 Okay. Famously, Dr. 14:25.541 --> 14:29.921 Johnson couldn't bear this poem, "Lycidas" -- Dr. 14:29.915 --> 14:33.965 Johnson, the greatest of all literary critics of the 14:33.971 --> 14:35.961 eighteenth century. 14:35.960 --> 14:39.070 Because Milton's poem is probably considered to be the 14:39.069 --> 14:42.529 most important elegy written in any language by any poet, 14:42.529 --> 14:47.169 Johnson's assessment of it has become famous for being one of 14:47.169 --> 14:51.189 the most wrong-headed evaluations ever made of a work 14:51.191 --> 14:55.441 of literature by a great literary critic -- but inspired 14:55.444 --> 14:58.624 wrong-headedness, which is what I take Dr. 14:58.615 --> 15:02.245 Johnson to be guilty of, is invaluable. 15:02.250 --> 15:03.960 And so I want to quote Dr. 15:03.959 --> 15:06.719 Johnson here, and this is on the handout. 15:06.720 --> 15:10.290 ["Lycidas"] is not to be considered as the 15:10.289 --> 15:14.459 effusion of real passion; for passion runs not after 15:14.456 --> 15:17.626 remote allusions and obscure opinions. 15:17.629 --> 15:21.619 Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, 15:21.618 --> 15:26.098 nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of "rough 15:26.095 --> 15:29.265 satyrs and fauns with cloven heel." 15:29.269 --> 15:32.599 "Where there is leisure for fiction, there is little 15:32.600 --> 15:34.470 grief." [The] 15:34.465 --> 15:38.975 form [of the pastoral elegy, or the form of "Lycidas"] 15:38.976 --> 15:43.156 is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar and therefore 15:43.164 --> 15:46.254 disgusting… Now I have to say, 15:46.253 --> 15:48.513 although the last word is obviously incredibly powerful 15:48.513 --> 15:50.833 and sort of wonderful, it doesn't have quite the punch 15:50.833 --> 15:52.973 that it does -- it didn't have quite the punch in the 15:52.970 --> 15:54.820 eighteenth century that it has for us now. 15:54.820 --> 15:59.410 Disgusting really means literally for Johnson merely 15:59.405 --> 16:02.185 "distasteful." These are still strong words. 16:02.190 --> 16:05.980 There has to be something more here than merely Johnson's 16:05.980 --> 16:08.620 massive blunder as a literary critic. 16:08.620 --> 16:13.360 Johnson tells us that "Lycidas" is not to be considered as the 16:13.361 --> 16:17.261 effusion of real passion, for passion runs not after 16:17.264 --> 16:19.974 remote allusions and obscure opinions. 16:19.970 --> 16:24.570 It's difficult to imagine that as an expression of genuine 16:24.572 --> 16:28.852 grief over the death of a genuinely close friend would 16:28.851 --> 16:32.001 take the form of a poem so learned, 16:32.000 --> 16:35.790 so filled with remote literary allusions and obscure opinions. 16:35.789 --> 16:39.779 Johnson obviously has a point here.But we have to remember 16:39.776 --> 16:43.366 that King himself was a poet, or thought of himself as a 16:43.371 --> 16:45.751 poet. He was a poet who died before 16:45.750 --> 16:49.270 he could take up his career, and it's not unlikely that -- 16:49.270 --> 16:53.040 he wasn't married -- that he was also a poet who died while he 16:53.037 --> 16:54.517 was still a virgin. 16:54.519 --> 16:58.859 King's death provides Milton with an occasion on which Milton 16:58.860 --> 17:02.770 is able to write the most personal poem that he has yet 17:02.767 --> 17:06.237 written and perhaps that he will ever write. 17:06.240 --> 17:10.520 He gets to ask all of those questions that are most pressing 17:10.522 --> 17:12.122 to him, John Milton. 17:12.119 --> 17:15.259 What if the virginal Milton were to die before he was able 17:15.258 --> 17:16.578 to take up his career? 17:16.579 --> 17:21.929 What if he died before he was able to fulfill his promise as a 17:21.926 --> 17:27.006 poet, before he could publish or make public his talent? 17:27.009 --> 17:30.649 The very structure, in fact, of Milton's poem here 17:30.654 --> 17:33.484 is what Dr. Johnson would be obliged to 17:33.481 --> 17:35.491 call a remote allusion. 17:35.490 --> 17:40.310 The poem is based most closely on Virgil's Tenth Eclogue. 17:40.309 --> 17:43.799 This is the poem in which the speaker grieves over a death by 17:43.797 --> 17:46.817 imagining a procession of mourners at the funeral. 17:46.819 --> 17:49.969 This really provides the central rhetorical base for 17:49.971 --> 17:53.431 Milton's "Lycidas." The speaker of the poem 17:53.432 --> 17:56.402 mourns the death of the shepherd-poet Lycidas and 17:56.399 --> 18:00.459 describes this parade, this procession of mourners who 18:00.464 --> 18:04.684 make their tribute to the deceased.So look at line -- 18:04.682 --> 18:08.902 I'll run through some of the essential sections here. 18:08.900 --> 18:10.320 Lines seventy-six to eighty-four. 18:10.319 --> 18:13.689 We have the god of poetry, Phoebus Apollo himself, 18:13.691 --> 18:17.411 who makes an appearance, and he chides Milton for being 18:17.407 --> 18:21.327 so concerned with earthly fame -- more on that later. 18:21.329 --> 18:23.939 Line eighty-eight, the next section: 18:23.941 --> 18:26.331 Triton, the herald of the sea. 18:26.329 --> 18:28.979 He tries to make sense of Lycidas' death. 18:28.980 --> 18:33.360 He asks the gods what has happened to Lycidas and who 18:33.355 --> 18:38.315 exactly was responsible for the sinking of Lycidas' ship. 18:38.319 --> 18:41.759 In the next line four lines, we have Camus; 18:41.759 --> 18:44.959 the god of the river Cam appears. 18:44.960 --> 18:47.610 He represents Cambridge University, the alma 18:47.608 --> 18:51.348 mater, where Edward King and John Milton had been students. 18:51.349 --> 18:57.559 And finally at lines 108 through 131, we have Saint 18:57.557 --> 19:01.527 Peter, he of the pearly gates. 19:01.530 --> 19:04.100 Peter bursts onto the scene. 19:04.099 --> 19:07.489 Without question he's the most terrifying of all of the 19:07.487 --> 19:11.567 mourners, and he gives an angry, powerful, vitriolic speech 19:11.565 --> 19:15.975 about the terrible state of England -- the terrible state of 19:15.980 --> 19:19.350 the Church of England and, as a consequence, 19:19.351 --> 19:22.881 of the terrible state of England in 1637.So the 19:22.884 --> 19:26.704 structure of this poem is unquestionably Virgilian, 19:26.700 --> 19:29.740 but the sentiments that are voiced in this poem are 19:29.739 --> 19:34.399 unquestionably Miltonic, and we will recognize them. 19:34.400 --> 19:41.930 Who but Milton could speak the poem's famous opening lines? 19:41.930 --> 19:43.880 Turn to the beginning of "Lycidas." 19:43.880 --> 19:46.330 Yet once more, O ye Laurels, 19:46.327 --> 19:50.627 and once more Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere, 19:50.630 --> 19:54.570 I come to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, And 19:54.572 --> 19:58.392 with forc'd fingers rude, Shatter your leaves before 19:58.391 --> 19:59.651 the mellowing year. 19:59.650 --> 20:03.250 Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, 20:03.253 --> 20:07.843 Compels me to disturb your season due: For Lycidas is 20:07.839 --> 20:10.869 dead, dead ere his prime... 20:10.869 --> 20:15.009 Milton is lamenting, once again, that Milton has 20:15.012 --> 20:18.012 been compelled to begin writing. 20:18.009 --> 20:21.069 Edward King had died, and the editor of the Edward 20:21.069 --> 20:24.689 King Memorial Anthology has pressed Milton into service. 20:24.690 --> 20:26.610 What could the young poet do? 20:26.609 --> 20:30.419 Bitter constraint and sad occasion are forcing him to 20:30.420 --> 20:34.230 write, even though, of course, he's not yet ready. 20:34.230 --> 20:37.830 The laurels and the myrtles that he addresses here are, 20:37.827 --> 20:41.487 of course, the traditional plants classically associated 20:41.491 --> 20:46.001 with great poets; but for Milton in this passage, 20:46.001 --> 20:50.921 importantly these plants simply aren't ripe yet. 20:50.920 --> 20:53.670 Their berries are still harsh and crude. 20:53.670 --> 20:56.630 They haven't yet had time to develop. 20:56.630 --> 20:59.840 Milton is telling us that he is himself in the process, 20:59.839 --> 21:01.979 still in the process, of maturing. 21:01.980 --> 21:05.630 He's not yet up to the task of a great poem yet. 21:05.630 --> 21:08.960 The only fingers with which he'll be able to hold his pen 21:08.957 --> 21:12.167 and write this poem are his forced fingers rude.Now 21:12.166 --> 21:14.596 you're right: you're right if you have the 21:14.602 --> 21:16.922 [laughs] feeling that you've heard a lot 21:16.920 --> 21:19.000 of these same ideas before. 21:19.000 --> 21:22.410 Milton's nearly twenty-nine years old when he writes 21:22.414 --> 21:26.504 "Lycidas." He's making exactly the same disclaimer that 21:26.497 --> 21:28.637 he had made in Sonnet Seven. 21:28.640 --> 21:32.430 You remember Sonnet Seven, "How Soon Hath Time," the 21:32.427 --> 21:36.287 sonnet that he had written on the sad occasion of his 21:36.289 --> 21:38.219 twenty-third birthday. 21:38.220 --> 21:41.010 Milton had claimed there that he seemed to have all the 21:41.007 --> 21:43.017 outward appearances of an adult male, 21:43.019 --> 21:47.459 of a man, but "[an] inward ripeness doth much less 21:47.463 --> 21:49.843 appear." His poetic talent, 21:49.838 --> 21:53.428 his poetic promise, his poetic ripeness -- it 21:53.429 --> 21:57.749 hasn't yet burgeoned or made itself manifest.Well, 21:57.753 --> 22:00.123 this is six years later. 22:00.119 --> 22:04.129 Six years later when Milton writes "Lycidas," he's employing 22:04.132 --> 22:08.352 the same fiction of unreadiness and filled with all of the same 22:08.347 --> 22:10.657 anxiety of under-preparedness. 22:10.660 --> 22:14.850 As in Sonnet Seven, Milton writes the first verse 22:14.846 --> 22:19.036 paragraph of this great poem, "Lycidas" -- the first 22:19.041 --> 22:21.871 fourteen lines -- in essentially the form of a sonnet. 22:21.869 --> 22:25.989 The lines have distinctly a sonnet rhyme-scheme, 22:25.993 --> 22:27.663 but look closely. 22:27.660 --> 22:31.590 It's not a perfect sonnet in quite the same way that Sonnet 22:31.587 --> 22:33.967 Seven was. Look at line number four, 22:33.968 --> 22:36.978 which is so clearly -- simply by looking at this, 22:36.980 --> 22:40.620 you can tell it's deficient in the number of syllables. 22:40.619 --> 22:45.109 There are only six syllables here rather than the 22:45.111 --> 22:46.891 conventional ten. 22:46.890 --> 22:49.850 It's this line, "And with forc'd fingers rude" 22:49.853 --> 22:53.083 -- this is called a broken line or a half-line, 22:53.079 --> 22:55.709 and this broken line has been read, I think, 22:55.711 --> 22:59.511 rightly as Milton's indication to his reader that he's not even 22:59.506 --> 23:02.746 up to the task of writing a sonnet at this point. 23:02.750 --> 23:08.240 Anything he writes is going to be forced, compelled -- and with 23:08.242 --> 23:13.382 his forced fingers rude he violates the formal prosodic, 23:13.380 --> 23:16.460 the metrical, scheme of his elegy at its very 23:16.460 --> 23:19.500 opening. Just like Edward King who died 23:19.495 --> 23:23.075 before his prime, Milton has to write this poem 23:23.075 --> 23:27.425 before his own poetic prime and so it is with this deeply 23:27.434 --> 23:31.014 apologetic, intensely hesitant beginning 23:31.014 --> 23:36.354 that John Milton opens what many consider to be the greatest poem 23:36.349 --> 23:41.189 in the English language.The fact that the death here in 23:41.185 --> 23:45.015 "Lycidas" is the death of a young, 23:45.019 --> 23:47.829 virginal poet at the very outset of his career, 23:47.828 --> 23:50.818 as you can imagine, resonates in a lot of powerful 23:50.820 --> 23:53.260 ways. The very idea that a figure so 23:53.262 --> 23:56.982 virtuous could have been dealt such a tragic and early death 23:56.984 --> 23:59.734 strikes Milton, or Milton's speaker here, 23:59.727 --> 24:01.397 as the rankest injustice. 24:01.400 --> 24:05.300 It's this sense of injustice that keeps pushing this elegy in 24:05.297 --> 24:09.067 the direction of a theodicy: an attempt to justify the ways 24:09.065 --> 24:11.815 of God. Milton has to justify or at 24:11.817 --> 24:15.657 least understand this seemingly incomprehensible and 24:15.664 --> 24:17.404 unjustifiable event. 24:17.400 --> 24:21.980 It's this drive to theodicy that accounts for the poem's 24:21.983 --> 24:23.903 most painful moments. 24:23.900 --> 24:26.880 Look at line fifty. 24:26.880 --> 24:31.190 This is where Milton asks the ocean nymphs where they were 24:31.191 --> 24:35.811 when Edward King's boat was lost while crossing the Irish Sea: 24:35.805 --> 24:38.145 why didn't you do anything? 24:38.150 --> 24:41.840 "Where were ye Nymphs, when the remorseless deep / 24:41.837 --> 24:45.297 clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?" 24:45.299 --> 24:50.329 If you loved Lycidas so much, how could you let him die? 24:50.329 --> 24:54.609 No sooner has the speaker asked this question -- and you see 24:54.609 --> 24:58.149 this rhythm, this dynamic, appear continually throughout 24:58.147 --> 25:01.317 "Lycidas" -- he asks the question, and then immediately 25:01.319 --> 25:03.919 he acknowledges the inadequacy of the question. 25:03.920 --> 25:08.410 Look at line fifty-five: "Ay me, I fondly dream! 25:08.410 --> 25:12.040 / Had ye been there -- for what could that have done?" 25:12.039 --> 25:14.499 The nymphs, of course, are powerless, 25:14.498 --> 25:16.408 and worse than that, [laughs] 25:16.410 --> 25:20.230 the nymphs, as we know and of course as John Milton knew, 25:20.234 --> 25:22.014 are merely fictions. 25:22.010 --> 25:22.880 This is all made up. 25:22.880 --> 25:27.100 It's folly to think that we have about us protective spirits 25:27.098 --> 25:31.458 who might actually keep us from harm.Milton continues: 25:31.460 --> 25:35.100 What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, 25:35.098 --> 25:38.268 The Muse herself, for her enchanting son Whom 25:38.273 --> 25:42.563 Universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made 25:42.563 --> 25:47.053 the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, 25:47.049 --> 25:52.559 Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? 25:52.559 --> 25:56.009 Why after all should we expect the nymphs to have helped poor 25:56.005 --> 25:58.555 Lycidas? Not even the muse Calliope, 25:58.564 --> 26:02.394 the muse of epic poetry, was in a position to avert a 26:02.385 --> 26:04.365 human tragedy like this. 26:04.369 --> 26:08.349 Calliope hadn't even been able to save her son, 26:08.352 --> 26:12.512 the poet Orpheus, when the terrifying Bacchae had 26:12.508 --> 26:17.878 torn his body limb from limb -- when the terrifying Bacchae had 26:17.876 --> 26:23.156 sent his head rolling down the Hebrus River all the way to the 26:23.158 --> 26:27.148 Isle of Lesbos. If you've read "L'Allegro" and 26:27.150 --> 26:31.020 "Il Penseroso," you know that the image of the great 26:31.018 --> 26:35.218 mythological poet Orpheus is always a loaded one for Milton. 26:35.220 --> 26:39.180 This is a myth that has and will continue to haunt Milton 26:39.179 --> 26:42.859 all the way up through Paradise Lost.Let's 26:42.856 --> 26:47.026 have a little review of the career of the great poet Orpheus 26:47.028 --> 26:50.138 as we get it certainly in "L'Allegro" and "Il 26:50.140 --> 26:54.310 Penseroso." Orpheus was the poet who had attempted to 26:54.312 --> 26:57.612 bring his wife, Eurydice, back from the 26:57.610 --> 27:01.670 underworld, and he did that by charming Pluto with his song. 27:01.670 --> 27:04.840 The attempt failed and, saddened by Eurydice's death, 27:04.842 --> 27:08.322 Orpheus spent the rest of his life avoiding the company of 27:08.319 --> 27:12.439 women. He kept himself solitary and 27:12.437 --> 27:15.267 chaste. He devoted himself to poetry. 27:15.269 --> 27:18.959 He sang songs of such beauty that the entire natural world 27:18.962 --> 27:21.232 would move and dance in response. 27:21.230 --> 27:24.460 This is the story of Orpheus that we have received up to this 27:24.464 --> 27:25.924 point in Milton's poetry. 27:25.920 --> 27:28.780 This is the story of the empowerment of the poet, 27:28.777 --> 27:32.347 his empowerment through his experience of a terrible loss. 27:32.349 --> 27:37.719 Clearly this is a myth that Milton is identifying with very 27:37.722 --> 27:42.822 strongly here.But the subject of "Lycidas" isn't the 27:42.816 --> 27:45.406 empowerment of the poet. 27:45.410 --> 27:48.020 It's about the untimely death of a poet. 27:48.019 --> 27:51.729 And so when the figure of Orpheus appears in this poem, 27:51.728 --> 27:55.508 it's the second half of the Orpheus story that Milton is 27:55.505 --> 27:58.425 forced to tell. Orpheus devotes himself to his 27:58.434 --> 28:00.934 beautiful poetry, and he keeps himself sexually 28:00.925 --> 28:03.435 abstinent. He rejects all of the advances 28:03.437 --> 28:06.687 of the women who are attracted to him but Bacchantes, 28:06.690 --> 28:10.830 the female followers of the god Bacchus, are enraged by what 28:10.833 --> 28:12.943 they take to be his coyness. 28:12.940 --> 28:17.330 They drown out Orpheus' music with the hideous roar of their 28:17.331 --> 28:21.501 howlings and their screamings and they tear him limb from 28:21.500 --> 28:24.920 limb. The chaste poet was unable to 28:24.917 --> 28:29.367 pass uninjured in that wild surrounding waste. 28:29.369 --> 28:33.469 This violence was so terrible that not even his mother, 28:33.466 --> 28:37.106 the muse Calliope, could save him.Orpheus had 28:37.108 --> 28:40.748 provided Milton with a paradigm of the poet, 28:40.750 --> 28:44.050 the poet whose discipline and whose abstinence nourished and 28:44.047 --> 28:45.497 strengthened his poetry. 28:45.500 --> 28:49.730 Orpheus in a lot of ways seemed like the perfect model of a poet 28:49.734 --> 28:53.704 because he had the power to do something with his poetry. 28:53.700 --> 28:56.490 His verse actually had a physical impact on the world. 28:56.490 --> 29:00.820 The rocks, the woods, and the trees danced in 29:00.823 --> 29:03.683 response to Orpheus' music. 29:03.680 --> 29:07.800 In Comus, the Lady had identified with Orpheus 29:07.795 --> 29:12.115 as she described to Comus what her speech about virginity would 29:12.120 --> 29:15.050 do if she were actually to deliver it. 29:15.049 --> 29:19.769 She would bring all of Comus' magic structures down around his 29:19.768 --> 29:22.148 head. It's just this Orphic power 29:22.147 --> 29:25.817 that Milton, like the Lady, was always anticipating for 29:25.821 --> 29:29.481 himself. He's been waiting and waiting 29:29.475 --> 29:35.585 for his season due so that he can ripen into a powerful Orphic 29:35.588 --> 29:41.498 poet.How then can we justify the ways of God to men? 29:41.500 --> 29:44.720 How can we justify the fact that the abstinent Orpheus, 29:44.721 --> 29:47.701 the virtuous Orpheus, was so brutally assaulted and 29:47.704 --> 29:50.274 without any aid from the higher powers? 29:50.269 --> 29:54.199 It would seem that the Elder Brother and his sister were way 29:54.200 --> 29:57.530 too optimistic in their assessment of the protected 29:57.530 --> 30:01.390 status of the virtuous poet and the protected status of the 30:01.394 --> 30:04.934 virgin, the favored role of the poet. 30:04.930 --> 30:06.930 Virginity does nothing. 30:06.930 --> 30:08.560 Virtue does nothing. 30:08.560 --> 30:11.030 Poetry does nothing. 30:11.029 --> 30:15.069 All of the self-discipline and all of the self-denial in the 30:15.073 --> 30:18.503 world can do nothing -- this seems to be one of the 30:18.500 --> 30:22.750 implications of this poem -- can do nothing to protect the poet 30:22.749 --> 30:26.789 from an untimely death.It's at this moment that the poem 30:26.792 --> 30:31.162 reaches a remarkable climax, and I have to say that this is 30:31.157 --> 30:34.507 actually only one of the poem's remarkable climaxes. 30:34.509 --> 30:38.649 This poem has amazing ebbs and flows throughout its entirety, 30:38.647 --> 30:42.787 but without question this is one of the most intense personal 30:42.785 --> 30:44.505 moments in the elegy. 30:44.510 --> 30:46.670 Look at line sixty-four. 30:46.670 --> 30:51.190 Here we have Milton asking himself all of those questions, 30:51.193 --> 30:54.053 all of those vocational questions, 30:54.049 --> 30:59.309 that this fact -- the fact of Edward King's death -- seems to 30:59.313 --> 31:04.123 open up for him: Alas! 31:04.119 --> 31:08.419 What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely 31:08.417 --> 31:12.717 slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the 31:12.715 --> 31:15.935 thankless Muse? Were it not better done as 31:15.936 --> 31:19.876 others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or 31:19.877 --> 31:22.747 with the tangles of Neaera's hair? 31:22.750 --> 31:27.210 I think these lines at this point -- I'm going to read them 31:27.214 --> 31:29.824 again. They're too important simply to 31:29.824 --> 31:31.554 have been read once: Alas! 31:31.549 --> 31:35.499 What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely 31:35.498 --> 31:39.448 slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the 31:39.446 --> 31:42.476 thankless Muse? Were it not better done as 31:42.481 --> 31:46.281 others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or 31:46.275 --> 31:49.035 with the tangles of Neaera's hair? 31:49.039 --> 31:52.939 At this point in our reading of Milton, I think these lines have 31:52.941 --> 31:54.181 an amazing impact. 31:54.180 --> 31:57.140 We've spent a couple of weeks now reading Milton's 31:57.138 --> 32:00.578 declarations of the importance of the shepherd's trade. 32:00.579 --> 32:06.299 This is the vocation of poetry in this pastoral lexicon. 32:06.299 --> 32:09.529 You remember he's written his father in "Ad Patrem" 32:09.525 --> 32:12.385 that the trade, the vocation of poetry -- it 32:12.385 --> 32:15.545 may be homely and slighted in his father's eyes, 32:15.549 --> 32:19.279 but it was of course worth all of Milton's time, 32:19.280 --> 32:23.090 all of Milton's uncessant care and investment. 32:23.089 --> 32:27.349 And now Milton's in the position of asking, 32:27.352 --> 32:30.412 "What for? What's this all about? 32:30.410 --> 32:31.920 Look what happened to Edward King. 32:31.920 --> 32:34.900 What's the point of all of this study, all of this work, 32:34.900 --> 32:38.150 all of this self-denial if I could just wind up" -- this is a 32:38.152 --> 32:41.352 good question -- if I could just wind up dead tomorrow? 32:41.349 --> 32:47.309 And now that I'm thinking of it, why deny myself sexually? 32:47.309 --> 32:50.859 Why deny myself physical gratification if I could just 32:50.859 --> 32:55.079 instead sport with Amaryllis in the shade or with the tangles of 32:55.077 --> 32:58.077 Neaera's hair?" And Milton's asking in these 32:58.084 --> 33:01.864 lines not simply about actual erotic entanglements -- although 33:01.863 --> 33:05.433 I think that's there, a relation with women -- but 33:05.425 --> 33:08.755 it's a question about erotic poetry as well. 33:08.759 --> 33:11.799 Why can't he write love poetry, secular poetry, 33:11.798 --> 33:14.438 instead of this much more disciplined, 33:14.440 --> 33:19.350 much more difficult mode of sacred and prophetic poetry that 33:19.347 --> 33:23.087 he seems already to have wedded himself to? 33:23.089 --> 33:27.509 What's the point of making life so hard for himself?Look 33:27.511 --> 33:31.871 now, and this is on the handout, at the letter that Milton had 33:31.871 --> 33:34.371 written to his friend, Charles Diodati. 33:34.369 --> 33:37.859 This letter was written at nearly the same time that Milton 33:37.862 --> 33:41.662 was writing "Lycidas." He wrote -- and this too is in the 33:41.655 --> 33:44.125 packet -- he wrote: Listen, 33:44.130 --> 33:48.880 Diodati, but in secret lest thy blush, and let me talk to you 33:48.883 --> 33:51.343 grandiloquently for a while. 33:51.340 --> 33:54.570 You ask what I am thinking. 33:54.569 --> 33:59.859 So help me, God, an immortality of fame. 33:59.859 --> 34:04.379 And we would read -- can you imagine getting such a letter? 34:04.380 --> 34:08.510 Milton may well blush at this extraordinary confession. 34:08.510 --> 34:12.460 He is courting poetic fame more shamelessly at this point in his 34:12.460 --> 34:16.160 career than he has before and perhaps that he will after. 34:16.159 --> 34:20.309 The death of Edward King is really forcing him to question 34:20.306 --> 34:24.156 the point of his pursuit of greatness, of poetic fame, 34:24.162 --> 34:26.202 and all of his ambition. 34:26.199 --> 34:29.699 The poem continues at line seventy: 34:29.699 --> 34:33.939 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 34:33.936 --> 34:38.316 (That last infirmity of Noble mind) To scorn delights, 34:38.320 --> 34:42.470 and live laborious days, But the fair Guerdon when we 34:42.469 --> 34:46.989 hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 34:46.989 --> 34:52.739 Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And 34:52.740 --> 34:58.080 slits the thin-spun life. It's the pursuit of fame, 34:58.078 --> 35:02.658 the noble pursuit of fame, that spurs us to scorn delights 35:02.659 --> 35:05.069 and to live laborious days. 35:05.070 --> 35:09.510 Fame spurs us to pursue the abstinent life of the poet. 35:09.510 --> 35:12.760 It's the guerdon, the reward, the prize of fame 35:12.764 --> 35:16.234 that we're continually anticipating will burst out 35:16.230 --> 35:18.990 someday in a sudden blaze of glory. 35:18.989 --> 35:22.299 But as soon as we hope to find that guerdon, 35:22.300 --> 35:25.760 the golden ring, comes the blind Fury with the 35:25.764 --> 35:27.924 abhorred shears -- ouch! 35:27.920 --> 35:31.410 -- and slits the thin-spun life. 35:31.409 --> 35:35.159 The blind Fury here is the mythological figure Atropos; 35:35.159 --> 35:39.979 this is the Fate that cuts the slender thread by which our 35:39.981 --> 35:43.331 lives dangle. Milton lends a special horror, 35:43.325 --> 35:47.335 I think, to this image of a blind Fury, and I hope you will 35:47.337 --> 35:51.487 agree with those critics -- I didn't make this up -- who find 35:51.487 --> 35:54.947 embedded in these lines something like a figurative 35:54.946 --> 35:57.156 intimation of castration. 35:57.159 --> 36:01.619 Like the furious Bacchae, the furious Atropos emasculates 36:01.618 --> 36:05.598 the man who dares to aspire to poetic greatness. 36:05.599 --> 36:10.109 With the abhorred shears she cruelly punishes the virgin poet 36:10.110 --> 36:14.770 for his failure on the one hand to use the sexual body that God 36:14.770 --> 36:18.400 has endowed him with, but you also have the image 36:18.402 --> 36:20.092 here of the poet's death. 36:20.090 --> 36:23.280 You have the image of the cutting off, the castration, 36:23.276 --> 36:25.136 of the power of generativity. 36:25.139 --> 36:29.519 All poetic potency, all power to assert oneself in 36:29.515 --> 36:34.955 the world, can be severed and that's it.I don't think that 36:34.962 --> 36:39.872 the critics who see here an image of castration are just 36:39.873 --> 36:43.813 imagining it, because there is such a weird 36:43.809 --> 36:47.669 and such a persistent interest in the human body, 36:47.670 --> 36:51.530 and especially in the poet's body, throughout this poem -- 36:51.527 --> 36:56.007 Milton's focus on the body, on the entire realm of the 36:56.005 --> 36:58.525 corporeal. I'm hoping that it feels a 36:58.531 --> 37:00.891 little strange to you and it seems strange, 37:00.891 --> 37:03.791 I think, when you consider what is 37:03.789 --> 37:09.259 obviously here the Christian context of Milton's "Lycidas." 37:09.260 --> 37:13.780 Orthodox Christianity teaches us to put aside our concerns for 37:13.776 --> 37:16.586 the body when we consider our death. 37:16.590 --> 37:21.300 The Old Testament prophet had said, "All flesh is grass," an 37:21.304 --> 37:26.024 important verse for the new dispensation of Christianity. 37:26.019 --> 37:29.649 The only thing that matters is the salvation of the 37:29.646 --> 37:34.696 incorporeal, the bodiless soul, but Milton is so unorthodox, 37:34.700 --> 37:39.070 or at least heterodox, in his insistence on the 37:39.072 --> 37:44.392 importance of the body in this poem.Look at the verse 37:44.393 --> 37:48.103 paragraph that begins at line 132. 37:48.100 --> 37:49.930 Oh, this passage! 37:49.929 --> 37:55.139 Milton asks the Sicilian muse -- this is the muse of pastoral 37:55.143 --> 38:00.443 poetry -- asks the muse to help him strew the flowers over the 38:00.444 --> 38:03.684 hearse, to strew with flowers the 38:03.682 --> 38:06.972 casket in which Lycidas' body lies. 38:06.969 --> 38:09.929 The body of Lycidas, even in death, 38:09.928 --> 38:13.408 is of an unusual interest to our poet. 38:13.409 --> 38:16.839 The speaker employs -- this is an amazingly physical, 38:16.838 --> 38:19.078 and I think it's even a sensual, 38:19.079 --> 38:24.809 language as he catalogs the flowers that he imagines will 38:24.809 --> 38:27.059 cover Lycidas' body. 38:27.060 --> 38:32.870 Line 135: Ye valleys low where the 38:32.867 --> 38:37.757 mild whispers use Of shades and wanton winds and gushing 38:37.760 --> 38:41.290 brooks, On whose fresh lap the 38:41.289 --> 38:46.989 swart Star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint 38:46.989 --> 38:51.059 enamell'd eyes, That on the green turf 38:51.057 --> 38:54.247 suck the honied showers… 38:54.250 --> 38:58.130 Okay: maybe the Elder Brother in Comus was wrong. 38:58.130 --> 39:01.260 The virgin's body can't -- you remember that amazing 39:01.259 --> 39:04.449 counterfactual fantasy -- the virgin's body can't, 39:04.449 --> 39:08.539 perhaps we're acknowledging here, can't be transmuted into 39:08.540 --> 39:11.190 spirit or soul. But we can still tend, 39:11.188 --> 39:13.328 and we can nurse, the dead body. 39:13.329 --> 39:17.489 We can lovingly care for it and ornament it here in our very 39:17.488 --> 39:19.248 corporeal way on earth. 39:19.250 --> 39:23.480 It's an intensely erotic passage, this image of 39:23.477 --> 39:26.967 decorating King's tomb with flowers. 39:26.969 --> 39:31.919 And it's at the height of this vision of our floral decoration 39:31.922 --> 39:36.472 of Lycidas' hearse that the speaker is suddenly caught up 39:36.468 --> 39:39.118 short. Look at line 154. 39:39.119 --> 39:43.719 We read line 154 and we realize we have been had. 39:43.719 --> 39:46.399 We have just -- we've been sucked in. 39:46.400 --> 39:49.950 We have just participated in one of the biggest cheats that 39:49.947 --> 39:51.107 poetry can offer. 39:51.110 --> 39:57.670 "Ay me!" he says as he realizes, 39:57.667 --> 40:00.877 of course, there will be no flowers. 40:00.880 --> 40:02.930 There's not going to be a hearse. 40:02.930 --> 40:04.770 Why not? There's no body! 40:04.770 --> 40:05.930 There's no body to decorate. 40:05.930 --> 40:08.810 What have we been thinking? 40:08.810 --> 40:10.550 Lycidas was drowned. 40:10.550 --> 40:12.370 His remains are unrecoverable. 40:12.369 --> 40:16.789 This is a terrible moment of realization on the part of the 40:16.788 --> 40:19.288 speaker. Whilst thee the shores 40:19.288 --> 40:22.888 and sounding Seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are 40:22.889 --> 40:25.509 hurl'd, Whether beyond the stormy 40:25.508 --> 40:29.438 Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 40:29.439 --> 40:33.369 Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world… 40:33.369 --> 40:37.149 Milton's confronting here the awful fact that Lycidas' bones 40:37.150 --> 40:40.800 -- they've been hurled to the four corners of the sounding 40:40.803 --> 40:43.553 seas. They could be anywhere. 40:43.550 --> 40:47.110 And as if that weren't terrible enough a realization, 40:47.109 --> 40:51.279 he goes on to envision an even more grotesque end for Lycidas' 40:51.284 --> 40:54.284 body. He conjures -- surely this is 40:54.276 --> 40:58.626 indecorous. This is wildly inappropriate, 40:58.633 --> 41:02.243 I think, in such a pious poem. 41:02.239 --> 41:05.889 He conjures the indecorous image of the dead Lycidas under 41:05.887 --> 41:09.787 the whelming tide visiting the bottom of the monstrous sea. 41:09.789 --> 41:12.119 It's that word "visit" that gets me every time. 41:12.119 --> 41:15.219 It's so inappropriate and ghoulish, I think, 41:15.224 --> 41:18.694 in this already sufficiently ghoulish context. 41:18.690 --> 41:21.320 First of all, it's like a parody of the epic 41:21.315 --> 41:24.665 journey to the underworld that we have in so many 41:24.672 --> 41:28.162 great classical texts, and it forces us to think, 41:28.160 --> 41:32.030 at least for a moment here, of Lycidas as some ghastly 41:32.034 --> 41:34.524 underwater visitor: a skeletal, 41:34.519 --> 41:38.589 monstrous version of Jacques Cousteau peering into the 41:38.592 --> 41:42.862 unknowable monstrous, mysterious depths of the bottom 41:42.863 --> 41:47.953 of the world.This intensely intimate focus on the human body 41:47.952 --> 41:51.912 is out of place in a Christian elegy and this, 41:51.910 --> 41:54.290 of course, Milton knows. 41:54.289 --> 41:58.159 It's because the investment in the bodily world is so great 41:58.158 --> 42:02.158 here that Milton ultimately turns to the Christian vision, 42:02.159 --> 42:06.589 the more familiar Christian vision, of a bodiless afterlife. 42:06.590 --> 42:10.080 This is how this logic goes -- we are all familiar with this: 42:10.084 --> 42:13.644 our body remains to molder in the earth or welter in the ocean 42:13.638 --> 42:16.638 (where'ere), but our incorporeal spirit 42:16.637 --> 42:20.297 rises to heaven where it can enjoy an ethereal, 42:20.296 --> 42:23.726 a bodiless, world of eternity. 42:23.730 --> 42:27.490 And so Milton concludes "Lycidas" with this standard 42:27.485 --> 42:29.985 vision of Christian consolation. 42:29.989 --> 42:34.159 On some level this is textbook Protestant or Catholic 42:34.157 --> 42:36.637 Christianity. Weep no more, 42:36.643 --> 42:40.433 woeful Shepherds weep no more For Lycidas your sorrow 42:40.426 --> 42:43.656 is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath 42:43.660 --> 42:48.250 the wat'ry floor, So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed, 42:48.250 --> 42:53.230 And yet anon repairs his drooping head. 42:53.230 --> 42:57.880 This image of the afterlife is founded on the orthodox figure 42:57.878 --> 43:01.348 for eternity. The body stays to the earth 43:01.345 --> 43:04.155 while the soul, like the day-star, 43:04.162 --> 43:05.872 rises to the sky. 43:05.869 --> 43:09.639 But when you look a little more closely at this conclusion, 43:09.639 --> 43:13.019 I think you realize that Milton's heaven is almost as 43:13.019 --> 43:16.789 invested in the human body as Milton's earth had been. 43:16.789 --> 43:19.849 The heaven imagined here is able actually to supply us, 43:19.849 --> 43:23.249 in fact, with a better body than the one we had down here. 43:23.250 --> 43:25.030 When the speaker writes that the day-star "… 43:25.030 --> 43:30.450 yet anon repairs his drooping head," we are reminded of 43:30.446 --> 43:33.346 Orpheus. We have an image here of the 43:33.353 --> 43:36.353 reconstituted, repaired body of Orpheus whose 43:36.346 --> 43:39.136 gory, severed head had been sent down 43:39.135 --> 43:41.955 the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore. 43:41.960 --> 43:45.410 It's as if Milton can't let go of this most un-Christian 43:45.413 --> 43:47.363 attachment to the human body. 43:47.360 --> 43:51.770 I think it's fair to say that Milton can't really imagine or 43:51.768 --> 43:55.948 fully invest himself in the Christian heaven until he can 43:55.953 --> 43:59.543 fully corporealize it and imagine it bodily. 43:59.539 --> 44:01.449 This is exactly, of course, what he will do in 44:01.445 --> 44:02.245 Paradise Lost. 44:02.250 --> 44:06.860 Everyone in Milton's heaven has a body, even God Himself. 44:06.860 --> 44:10.060 God Himself in Paradise Lost is nothing but body. 44:10.059 --> 44:13.379 His body is the universe itself.Listen to the 44:13.377 --> 44:17.517 physicality of the rest of the description of Milton's heaven 44:17.524 --> 44:20.984 in "Lycidas." This is line 172: 44:20.980 --> 44:24.340 So Lycidas, sunk low, but mounted high, 44:24.340 --> 44:28.120 Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves, 44:28.119 --> 44:32.319 Where other groves, and other streams along, 44:32.323 --> 44:35.803 With Nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 44:35.800 --> 44:40.690 And hears the unexpressive nuptial Song, In the blest 44:40.693 --> 44:43.263 Kingdoms meek of joy and love. 44:43.260 --> 44:46.960 There entertain him all the Saints above, In solemn 44:46.957 --> 44:49.967 troops, and sweet Societies That sing, 44:49.969 --> 44:55.209 and singing in their glory move And wipe the tears 44:55.212 --> 45:00.702 forever from his eyes. Clearly, the other groves and 45:00.697 --> 45:04.427 the other streams are different in heaven. 45:04.429 --> 45:07.899 They are different from the groves and streams we have down 45:07.898 --> 45:10.708 here, but they don't seem necessarily to differ, 45:10.708 --> 45:13.398 I submit, in their degree of physicality. 45:13.400 --> 45:16.340 Lycidas is going to shampoo his hair in heaven much as he 45:16.335 --> 45:19.425 shampooed his hair on earth, except in heaven there's always 45:19.428 --> 45:23.398 a difference. It will be a nectar pure with 45:23.403 --> 45:26.703 which he laves his oozy locks. 45:26.699 --> 45:29.979 And even more important, Lycidas will continue to sing 45:29.975 --> 45:32.505 in heaven just as he had sung on earth, 45:32.510 --> 45:36.600 except now he can hear the unexpressive -- that means 45:36.603 --> 45:39.283 "inexpressible" -- nuptial song. 45:39.280 --> 45:41.430 We remember this song. 45:41.429 --> 45:44.999 This is the song mentioned in Revelation 14 that Milton is 45:45.003 --> 45:48.583 continually alluding to and we saw him allude to just this 45:48.577 --> 45:50.267 passage in "Ad Patrem." 45:50.269 --> 45:54.649 John the Divine had written in Revelation 14 -- you know this: 45:54.650 --> 45:57.040 And they sung as it were a new song before the 45:57.040 --> 45:59.270 throne… and no man could learn that 45:59.271 --> 46:02.131 song but the one hundred and forty and four thousand, 46:02.125 --> 46:04.535 which were redeemed from the earth. 46:04.539 --> 46:08.949 These are they which were not defiled with women; 46:08.950 --> 46:13.690 for they are virgins. And it's virgins who get to 46:13.694 --> 46:17.104 sing the nuptial song at the wedding of the lamb that John 46:17.103 --> 46:19.943 also envisions. Milton can't allow himself to 46:19.944 --> 46:23.654 embrace the wonderful fiction, that beautiful fiction that had 46:23.654 --> 46:26.764 been espoused by the Elder Brother: the fantasy that 46:26.756 --> 46:29.836 virgins don't even die, that their bodies are simply 46:29.838 --> 46:32.348 reconstituted somehow [laughs] as angelic spirits. 46:32.350 --> 46:34.660 That went too far. 46:34.659 --> 46:39.109 It was too pagan, way too unorthodox. 46:39.110 --> 46:43.730 But Milton does permit himself the closest scriptural version 46:43.725 --> 46:47.175 of that fiction, and that's John's image in 46:47.178 --> 46:51.548 Revelation 14 of the special heavenly rewards for virgin 46:51.554 --> 46:56.414 poets.Now you also looked at for today the Latin poem that 46:56.407 --> 47:00.777 Milton wrote not long after "Lycidas." That's the 47:00.783 --> 47:04.773 poem "Damon's Epitaph," the "Epitaphium Damonis," 47:04.768 --> 47:07.678 written on the very sad occasion of the death of 47:07.679 --> 47:10.779 Milton's best friend, Charles Diodati, 47:10.775 --> 47:14.005 who died the next year, 1638. 47:14.010 --> 47:18.290 You remember this is the young fellow that Milton had confessed 47:18.291 --> 47:20.641 his desire for immortal fame to. 47:20.640 --> 47:21.610 Look at the end of that poem. 47:21.610 --> 47:23.550 This is page 139 in the Hughes. 47:23.550 --> 47:28.290 This is where Milton imagines -- you have to turn to 47:28.287 --> 47:31.397 this. He imagines Diodati just as he 47:31.401 --> 47:35.921 had imagined Edward King, enjoying at last his heavenly 47:35.922 --> 47:38.802 reward. This is the English translation 47:38.800 --> 47:42.870 because the poem is in Latin: Because you loved the 47:42.868 --> 47:47.448 blush of modesty and a stainless youth and because you did not 47:47.449 --> 47:50.229 taste the delight of the marriage-bed, 47:50.229 --> 47:53.209 lo! the rewards of virginity are 47:53.210 --> 47:54.740 reserved for you. 47:54.739 --> 47:59.359 Your glorious head shall be bound with a shining crown and 47:59.361 --> 48:04.231 with shadowing fronds of joyous palms in your hands you shall 48:04.225 --> 48:09.405 enact your part eternally in the immortal marriage where song and 48:09.413 --> 48:14.283 the sound of the lyre [can you even believe what I'm about to 48:14.278 --> 48:16.868 say?] are mingled in ecstasy with 48:16.872 --> 48:21.412 blessed dances and where the festal orgies rage under the 48:21.412 --> 48:26.102 heavenly thyrsus. Now we recognize the song. 48:26.099 --> 48:29.109 This is the song from Revelation of the virgins who 48:29.112 --> 48:32.552 could learn and sing the new song before the throne of the 48:32.547 --> 48:35.697 Lord, but Milton has obviously taken 48:35.699 --> 48:40.919 John's image here and exploded the implications of its erotic 48:40.919 --> 48:44.639 potential. It's not just that virgins are 48:44.639 --> 48:50.249 entitled to sing a heavenly song as Milton is saying Diodati is. 48:50.250 --> 48:53.240 The heavenly reward in this poem involves all of the 48:53.242 --> 48:56.822 sensuality, all of the sensual experience, that was denied and 48:56.820 --> 48:58.170 repressed on earth. 48:58.170 --> 49:00.740 This [laughs] -- "Damon's Epitaph" 49:00.741 --> 49:04.811 ends with a virtual orgasm of Christian consolation as 49:04.813 --> 49:09.243 Milton gives his best friend the most unbelievable sendoff that 49:09.242 --> 49:11.102 is possible to give. 49:11.099 --> 49:15.209 The heaven in this poem is so far from being the incorporeal 49:15.206 --> 49:19.096 -- the spiritual heaven of orthodox Christianity that you 49:19.104 --> 49:23.884 have an image of an actual orgy, the festal orgy raging under 49:23.875 --> 49:27.025 the thyrsus (that's the phallic wand). 49:27.030 --> 49:28.050 Who's holding this wand? 49:28.050 --> 49:30.940 Presumably none other than the orgiastic leader, 49:30.939 --> 49:33.409 God himself. There's no other way to 49:33.414 --> 49:36.714 interpret these lines which, as you can imagine, 49:36.712 --> 49:39.382 critics simply pretend don't exist, 49:39.380 --> 49:42.190 [laughs] because who can figure out what 49:42.190 --> 49:46.010 to say?In "Lycidas" Milton doesn't let himself, 49:46.010 --> 49:50.870 thank God, go quite so far as he does in this amazing ending 49:50.867 --> 49:55.637 to "Damon's Epitaph." In fact nowhere else do we see 49:55.643 --> 50:00.253 Milton literally [laughs] bursting out at the seams as he 50:00.254 --> 50:02.564 seems to in this poem. 50:02.559 --> 50:05.459 But the unmistakable physicality of the heaven 50:05.464 --> 50:09.084 imagined in the poem about Diodati gives us some idea, 50:09.079 --> 50:12.679 I think, of how to read the end of "Lycidas." The 50:12.684 --> 50:16.224 corporeality of "Damon's Epitaph" illuminates we 50:16.223 --> 50:20.293 can see the unorthodox direction in which Milton's "Lycidas" is 50:20.287 --> 50:23.037 tending.So let me conclude here. 50:23.039 --> 50:26.929 Milton has wrenched this poem away from Christianity, 50:26.931 --> 50:31.121 and he's forced it into a direction that we could loosely 50:31.122 --> 50:34.042 call paganism. There has been a slippage from 50:34.040 --> 50:36.610 Christian spirituality into something like a pagan 50:36.606 --> 50:40.006 naturalism, and it's a world in which all things are physical. 50:40.010 --> 50:42.770 All spirits, like the genius loci, 50:42.772 --> 50:45.402 are physical, palpable presences in the 50:45.396 --> 50:47.826 natural world. The human body, 50:47.833 --> 50:51.653 the world of flesh and blood that we all inhabit, 50:51.654 --> 50:56.514 has in some way at the end of this poem reasserted itself. 50:56.510 --> 51:00.530 In this final assertion of the body Milton, I think, 51:00.531 --> 51:04.791 is able to recover his theodicy, his attempt to justify 51:04.789 --> 51:07.469 the ways of God here on earth. 51:07.469 --> 51:13.509 Milton's Lycidas' body is still in some way a physical one. 51:13.510 --> 51:16.480 To the extent that Lycidas' body has been recovered, 51:16.483 --> 51:19.563 that it's been redeemed, Milton is able -- perhaps 51:19.558 --> 51:22.178 successfully, Milton is able to justify the 51:22.178 --> 51:23.548 ways of God to men. 51:23.550 --> 51:27.890 He's able to justify the ways of God to men here on the 51:27.885 --> 51:32.535 physical -- on this intimately bodily earth.This is the 51:32.541 --> 51:35.031 last thing I will tell you. 51:35.030 --> 51:39.810 As you have no doubt experienced, this is a dense and 51:39.806 --> 51:44.026 difficult poem, so please reread it innumerable 51:44.030 --> 51:48.750 times for Wednesday's class, and in addition to that do the 51:48.748 --> 51:50.228 other readings assigned. 51:50.230 --> 51:51.000 Okay.