A Formalistic Reading of John Milton's Lycidas

In the poem he veers from any pattern and words like, "abject louse," and "maggot," followed his reputation of having an angry diction. His work is completely impulsive which was seen as exotic and passionate, which certainly reflected the period. In his poetry he was said by Norton to stay away from, "making any sense or reason," (Saintsbury, 50).

The study of any poem often begins with its imagery. Being the centralized idea behind the power of poetry, imagery isn’t always there to just give a mental picture when reading the poem, but has other purposes. Imagery can speak to the five senses using figurative language as well as help create a specific emotion that the author is trying to infuse within the poem. It helps convey a complete human experience a very minimal amount of words. In this group of poems the author uses imagery to show that humanity is characterized as lost, sorrowful and regretful, but nature is untainted by being free of mistakes and flaws and by taking time to take in its attributes it can help humans have a sense of peace, purity, and joy, as well as a sense of

The focal point of this report will be on the content of poem 64 and how it, reflects Catullus himself and his relationship with Lesbia. Further, I will examine the mirroring of characters and emotions and ambiguity of the poem as it stands in relation to his other works.

George Gascoigne’s sonnet, “For That He Looked Not upon Her,” portrays a sullen man, hurt by the woman he loved. Through the uses of form, diction, and imagery, the sonnet evokes a complex attitude in each quatrain elaborating on the stages of torment the speaker receives from his ex-lover. By using these literary devices, the speaker portrays the dangers of desire and the conflicts that arise from within it. Gascoigne conveys a solemn and melancholy complex attitude developed throughout the use of such literary devices. The attitude of the speaker, expressed through the form of the sonnet, explains the dangers of gazing at the woman who burned him.

His previous “cold reprieve” has been warmed by the leaves that “burn red” before dying in nature. The short but beautiful life of the leaf is a metaphor for what life should be - beautiful regardless of the time given. This juxtaposition of life as a “cold reprieve” changing into the image of a leaf burning “red” shows how the voice’s view on life is changing throughout the poem by the echo’s prompting. Realizing that nature is beautiful in death, he now understands that life is a beautiful journey leading up to death that should be cherished in all of its beauty. Dying is a process that can bring “ecstasy” in its wake. Waiting for death is not so bad when a beautiful life surrounded by joyful experiences is so readily available to all that are willing to think positively. Regardless of the beauty that can come with life, it can seem to become a burden that people suffer through until death. The grief that comes with “life’s long disease” will be resolved in death. Death is not an “enemy” to be feared, but a natural part of life that must be accepted. In contrast, the worst enemy of the voice is himself - his own uncertainty and worry have caused all of his pain. All of the rhetorical questions that he asks display the extent of his worry about the unknown future, but his subconscious begins to soothe his worries and comfort him with the

Even a critic such as Alfred Murtagh, who purports to “generally agree” with Niles, admits that “there is a great deal in the poem that provokes the sort of reading [Niles] opposes, and somehow one must account for this.”4

While the poem speaks of death, the tone is very subtle and joyful because of the multiple imageries of nature through diction such as “bird,” “garden,” and “water.”

A strong masculine rhyme consisting of a single stressed syllable “My Tongue is generations dead, My Nose defiles a comely head;”(5-6) gives a weight to these lines and provides rhetorical emphasis. It creates a break by bonding these lines tightly to each other. Because it is a perfect rhyme, it sounds a bit cutesy and childish, so it creates levity to contrast and enlighten the theme of death. The eye rhyme, “For hearkening to carnal evils My Ears have been the very devil’s”(7-8) creates more dissonance and thus disjunction in the reader. This irritation allows passage back into a state where it easier to empathize with the devil and evil. “More furtive then the Hand in low And vicious venery-Not so!”(11-12) exemplifies an imperfect or partial or approximate or slant or pararhyme which supports the theme of deception and dissent articulated by the words, “furtive”(11) and, “Not so!”(12).

BibliographyMilton, John. The Complete Poetry of John Milton. New York; Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. , 1971.

Their liminal nature, the quality which makes them monstrous, is reflected in the spaces they occupy within the landscape of the poem. These monsters are constructed by and inextricable from the landscapes which they inhabit. The landscape gives these monsters meaning. These monsters are not so much living breathing creatures, but a manifestation of Old English elemental fears in the dream like configuration of the narrative. Whether its Heorot, the sea, Grendel’s mere or the Dragon’s lair; these landscapes help define entities in this poem. In this presentation I will be looking at the symbolic value of these landscapes, how they build on the understanding of the world in an Old English context and how they interact with one another during the progression of the narrative to justify Elements of God, the supernatural and Nature in their

The Poem begins with a personification of death as "kindly" (3). By doing this, the speaker introduces a portrayal on death that might have conflictions. Most of the times, death has a negative connotation. Whether it is an inevitable or tragic view, it opposes to what is seen in the poem. The speaker accepts death as a friendly invitation when the time is right, rather than something that is bound to happen. The speaker then joins immortality, personified as a passenger in a carriage. Immortality simply cannot be a passenger as it is a non-living thing. The reasoning for this could be that immortality ties together the link between the speaker and death, ultimately introducing the voyage to come. The first stanza sets a precedent of a meter to follow throughout most of the poem. The first line contains eight

The language in this poem is quite harsh, emphasising the anger ‘Medusa’ feels for this man. There is a lexical field of destruction and disgust ‘shattered’ ‘filthy’ ‘stank’ that connotes the negative feelings of envy and fury that the poet is feeling. The poem as a whole is very figurative, mirroring

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”

The theme of the 'heroic' in John Milton's Paradise Lost is one that has often been the focus of critical debate, namely in the debate surrounding which character is the 'true' hero of the poem. Most critics of the subject have, however, noted that the difficultly in defining the 'hero' of Milton's work is mainly due to our “vague understanding of what constitutes heroism”1 and the fact that “the term itself is equivocal”2. The 'vague' terming of what heroism can be defined as it what draws critics to disagree with one another over the nature of heroism, as Charles Martindale points out that there are 'different models of heroic', many of which Milton employs in his epic poem. To incorporate these different 'models' of the heroic into his

In his epic poem titled Paradise Lost, John Milton describes his work as a process to justify “the ways of God to men”. In terms of the personal and individual, Milton’s main concern was between a man’s relationship and God. With this, comes the very idea of free will itself. One can define free will as the ability and freedom to choose between different possible courses of action. Not only is free will portrayed in Adam and Eve, but is also associated with God, Christ, Satan and the fallen angels. Milton enables these characters to make their own choices and have their own consequences based on their own decisions and free will. Throughout the poem, John Milton supports this concept of acting freely under God, he shows the reader that choosing ones own actions freely and independently is way more substantial and becomes more meaningful to ones self. Each characters free will in this poem helps explain why having this freedom of choice is so important and crucial in expressing and becoming ones self.