Pastoral Analysis Of John Milton 's ' Lycidas '

Country” are two the texts to be compared. Though they share similarities, they too are quite

“The tragedy...is in enteral stasis,” Marina Keegan says in her short essay Cold Pastoral. Her words vaguely foreshadow the essay’s main character,, Claire’s, emotions throughout the events of the story. Claire deals with the loss of her lover Brian while preparing for his vigil at the University of Vermont. She experiences self-consciousness, jealousy, and anger as she tries to cope with grief. These coping mechanisms result in a mentally draining week and can be used as a warning against those experiencing grief themselves.

The author’s tone is excited yet maintains a calmness, like someone in modern times might talk about something expensive that they bought. At points the author speaks with reverence of the palaces. The use of words like “feasted” and “echoing” helps in demonstrating the enormity of what they do for things that may seem like every day encounters, such as having a visitor over. This idea helps to demonstrate that the Greeks valued luxury and leisure so they could reap the rewards from the work that they had done.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer of the novel The Great Gatsby, and E.E. Cummings, writer of the poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town”, convey a similar theme in their works through the use of tone, imagery, and symbolism. Both selections are about love and reveal that death is real.

One of the principle tenets of the pastoral tradition is the ardently expressed admiration for the unique skills, knowledge and backbreaking labor required by

“Satan as archangel, before his fall, is never shown by Milton, but this stage of existence is often alluded to, as is the fact that some of his archangelic powers remain”(Carey pg.162). Satan is a character within Milton’s “Paradise Lost” who exemplifies a being on a journey to achieve goodness for himself by getting back at the being who put him into eternal damnation. Satan is forced by his own mind to rebel against God for what he has done to him by ‘making him fall from the eternal kingdom’. Satan is allowing himself to take up a journey through hell, heaven, and earth for the sole reason of trying to gain the seat of heaven because of his yearning for revenge against God, “Th’ infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile stirred up with envy and revenge.”(I.34-35). Satan tempts other beings by using a powerful technique known as pathos through his rhetoric seen in the passage, “Look on me, me who have touched and tasted, yet both live.”(IX.687-678) which shows Satan’s style of tempting Eve to eat of the forbidden tree through pathos. He offers himself up as the supernatural being who will take up an adventure which he is hoping will lead him to gain heaven for his own wants and cast God off his heavenly throne. Satan uses the demons in hell to help him achieve his goal of casting out those in power of heaven, which is shown in the quote “We may with more successful hope resolve to wage by force or guile eternal war irreconcilable, to our grand foe”(I.120-122) giving the

Disobedience plays a key role in the unfolding of Milton’s poem. Satan disobeys God because God gave him free will, and causes Eve to disobey Adam, to disobey God.

Elegy: (Kirszner, & Mandell, 2012 p. 352) a sad poem that grieves a subject death, but ends in consolation. For example, in the story of Emily Rose, she was grieving for her father, but the story did not end with the grief related to her father but the pain of never finding the right guy to marry or suitor.

Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot. (2010 AP Literature and Composition)

The elegy is written in free verse; it does not rhyme or have any regular meter, not employing a consistent pattern. The poem has no structure and is free throughout, which emanates Whitman’s attitude throughout the elegy: the embracement of death. One technique he uses the most is repeating the word “O”, for an example:

Pastoral poetry is a lyric poem that idealizes nature while criticizing urban life.These two pastoral poems are example of the contrast between the easygoing countryside and the hustle bustle of a city. In the famous pastoral poetry, “The Passionate Shepherd to his love,” the Shepherd happily describes the beautiful natural image of a perfect life. He wholeheartedly believes that love is always joyful and nothing can ruin the serenity. This poem is criticized for its deluded perspective by the Nymph in a taunting way. She mocks his fantasy life that has everlasting flowers, melodious birds and finest wool gown. The Nymph’s view on her ideal love is infinite, nonmaterialistic and realistic which contradicts the Shepherd’s view on ideal love—youthful, acquisitive, and blinding; these incompatible views tear a relationship into pieces especially when the problem is addressed in a cynical tone.

John Milton was a great poet during the English Civil War. He was not really discovered until Charles II was in charge and called to restore and rule in France. Milton lost his eyesight in 1651. He had been married a few times, his first wife passed away in 1652, and his second wife passed away in 1658 shortly after child birth. Most people believe his poem, “Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint” was for his beloved second wife, due to the fact that he was blind and never saw her face and her passing after childbirth.

Terry Gifford, a prominent literary theorist, defines pastoral in three ways in his critical book Pastoral.

As Book VIII of John Milton’s Paradise Lost begins, the “new-waked” human Adam ponders the nature of the universe and the motion of the stars (ll. 4-38). When Adam has finished his speech, Milton takes the opportunity to describe Eve, who is listening nearby. We find Eve reclining in the Garden, but with grace, not laziness: “she sat retired in sight,/With lowliness majestic from her seat” (41-42). This “lowliness majestic” is the central phrase to understanding Eve’s character—she is both humble and glorious. Everything that beholds her is captivated by her “grace that won who saw to wish her stay” (43). Even in this paradise, every other beautiful creation is drawn to Eve. She walks

Elegy: A poem of mourning, usually over death of an individual. It may also be a lament over the passing of life and beauty or a meditation over nature of death. An elegy is a type of lyrical poem, usually formal in language and structure and solemn or even melancholy in tone.