Lycidas : pastoral elegy by John Milton.
... reviewer's description in his otherwise eulogistic criticism of The Life Divine —in every part, in every passage, in almost every canto or section of a canto. It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or Comus or some brief narrative poem, but of the longer epical narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor Ramayana ; it aims not at a minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its world-vision... aesthetic temperament and its limitations, it was inevitable. Page 352 He himself seems to suggest this reason when he compares this difference to the difference of his approach as between Lycidas and Paradise Lost . His temperamental turn is shown by his special appreciation of Francis Thompson and Coventry Patmore and his response to Descent and Flame-Wind and the fineness of his judgment... respond to its poetic appeal; but without that it is difficult for an unprepared reader to respond,—all the more if this is, as you contend, a new poetry with a new law of expression and technique. Lycidas is one of the finest poems in any literature, one of the most consistently perfect among works of an equal length and one can apply to it the epithet "exquisite" and it is to the exquisite that your ...
... description" in his otherwise eulogistic criticism of The Life Divine — in every part, in every passage, in almost every canto or section of a canto. It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or Comus or some brief narrative poem, but of the longer epical narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor Ramayana; it aims not at a minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its world-vision... regard to his aesthetic temperament and its limitations, it was inevitable. He himself seems to suggest this reason when he compares this difference to the difference of his approach as between Lycidas and Paradise Lost. His temperamental turn is shown by his special appreciation of Francis Thompson and Coventry Patmore and his response to Descent and Flame-Wind and the fineness of his... its poetic appeal; but without that it is difficult for an unprepared reader to respond, — all the more if this is, as you contend, a new poetry with a new law of expression and technique. Lycidas is one of the finest poems in any literature, one of the most consistently perfect among works of an equal length and one can apply to it the epithet "exquisite" and it is to the exquisite that ...
... in Lycidas: Each at the head Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands No second stroke intend... 27 But there is not the mystery of the two-handed engine's single smite to end anything. And a more relevant compa-rison, showing the same lack, is made possible by two passages in another context in Paradise Lost. The first actually lends some precision to the Lycidas-image... epic commenced. This takes us from 1658, the date of the epic's commencement, to 1642, just five years after Milton's early Page 115 poetry had come to a close with the writing of Lycidas. The lines in question, therefore, may suggest themselves as a stage of direct growth from that poetry to the epic. But are they really so? They are ten lines standing at present in Book IV: they... sainthood: still, the words show the simple yet subtle precision of a verbal artistry which may prove adequate to profound spiritual purposes. Finally, we may instance those famous verses from Lycidas whose exact meaning has not yet been determined by critics. They come soon after Milton has talked of the greed of the new clergy, the failure of the pastors to look after their flock of believers ...
... thir gods, or seat Thir Kings when Aegypt with Assyria strove - etc. Page 80 Not to mention L' Allegro and Il Penseroso, you know them too well for me to cite them. Or from Lycidas, Under the opening eyelids of the morn We drove afield, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night... as they communicate the nature of a situation correctly, yet on a level of correctness which can hardly be honoured with the compliment: "original". Originality is apparent in your quotations from Lycidas. At nearly every step felicities meet us. Such striking, out-of-the-way gem-work is rarely found in Paradise Lost. There are profoundly moving passages where glimpses of Nature like Clear... we miss the impression of the new-minted. Though Milton's ear for rhythm can convert even the commonplace or the conventional into a charm, yet magic and music do not often merge as they do in the Lycidas- invocation to "Ye valleys", which you have quoted. It is as if in Paradise Lost Milton deliberately chose to be simpler, more natural, less outstanding in individual locutions and depended ...
... the final version we have this kind of proliferation. Sri Aurobindo justified it in a letter to me answering some criticisms by a friend of mine who had a penchant for compositions like Milton's Lycidas or Comus and who reacted unfavourably to the gradual detailed Page 326 unfoldment of the theme in the very first canto. Sri Aurobindo explained the reason for such an unfoldment... description of the Times Literary Supplement's criticism of The Life Divine - in every part, in every passage, in almost every canto or section of a canto. It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or Comus or some brief narrative poem, but of the longer epical narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor Ramayana; it aims not at a minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its world-vision ...
... permitted harsh language, but Milton the poet of Comus and Lycidas could not plunge into the m ê l é e of vituperation without doing something that went against his poetic grain. Not that the poet in him ran contrary to the temper of a Juvenal: savage indignation could find a natural tongue in him, as in the condemnatory passage in Lycidas about the unscrupulous pastors, the "blind mouths" that ...
... he made on a poet's work was on Page 12 Milton's achievement. In May, 1947, he wrote in a long letter on his own poetry a passage broadly comparing Lycidas and Paradise Lost. I may quote some lines: "If Lycidas with its beauty and perfection had been the supreme thing done by Milton even with all the lyrical poetry and the sonnets added to it, Milton would still have been ...
... cryptic reality intenser than anything the inspired intellect wanted to fashion. In older poetry too we have similar figures. Perhaps the most famous short example of the baffling is in Milton's Lycidas. A passage there speaks of the greed of the clergy of Milton's day, the failure of the pastors to look after their flock of believers. After recounting this clergy's slothful wickedness Milton caps... Lords. And indeed Parliament did behead the chief of the English clergy, Archbishop Laud. But surely Milton could not have foreseen this event which happened in 1645, eight years after the writing of Lycidas. Nor was the instrument of Laud's execution a sword: it was an axe. And, though the executioner's axe was operated with both hands to-gether and though Milton in his pamphlet Of Reformation in England ...
... subtlety: And airy tongues that syllable men's names. 20 Or listen to the massive ominous effect: The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes. 21 Lycidas, which comes three years after Comus, carries the master-rhythmist in even greater abundance and some of its passages have the authentic roll of Paradise Lost. They are too well known to be quoted... actually performed the feat of writing in Latin an elegy on the death of his friend Charles Diodati which nearly equals in poetic excellence the elegy over his friend Edward King's death, the marvellous Lycidas. So if in his steel-tempered old age he were to write Paradise Lost in Latin he was certain to produce a work which might stand on a level with Virgil's Aeneid and Lucretius's De Natura Rerum ...
... adored him, Voltaire who called Shakespeare a drunken barbarian. Finally, what of Wordsworth, whose Immortality Ode was hailed by Mark Pattison as the ne plus ultra of English poetry since the days of Lycidas? Kindly shed the light of infallible viveka on this chaos of jostling opinions. I am not prepared to classify all the poets in the universe—it was the front bench or benches you asked for. By others ...
... responsible for the establishment of an authentically intellectualised speech in English poetry: Milton. Particularly in the early Milton of the Nativity Hymn, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus and Lycidas we have a richness and Page 88 flexibility and supple penetrativeness which are almost lost in the later Milton's grandiose epic chant: Oft, on a plat of rising ground, I ...
... emotional, idea of what that emotion is." But surely there must be something in the reader to serve as a point d'appui for the poet's effort at communication? Else we shall be obliged to reject Lycidas as no poetry because Dr. Johnson found it crude and unmelodious, Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads as sheer metricised prose because Jeffreys remarked, "This will never do", Shelley's work as valueless ...
... iridescent imagination. Francis Jeffrey, before them, had uttered his notorious verdict on the lyricism of Wordsworth and Coleridge: "This will never do!" Johnson, still earlier, had found Milton's Lycidas commonplace if not crude. When such minds could show blindspots, it is hardly surprising that an Indian reviewer of moderate talent should miss the mark altogether in judging Sri Aurobindo. And the ...
... becomes clear from the following quotation taken from a letter in reply to certain criticism of Savitri. He speaks about the plan of Savitri: It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or Comus or some brief narrative poem, but of the larger epical narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor Ramayana; it aims not at the minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its world-vision ...
... idea of what that emotion is." But surely there must be something in the reader to serve as a point d'appui for the poet's effort at communication? Else we shall be obliged to reject Lycidas as no poetry because Dr. Johnson found it crude and unmelodious, Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads as sheer metricised prose because Jeffreys remarked, "This will never do", Shelley's work as valueless ...
... emotional, idea of what that emotion is." But surely there must be something in the reader to serve as a point d'appui for the poet 's effort at communication. Else we shall be obliged to reject Lycidas as no poetry because Dr. Johnson found it crude and unmelodious, Wordsworth 's Lyrical Ballads as sheer prose because Jeffreys remarked, "This will never do". Shelley's work as valueless because ...
... becomes clear from the following quotation taken from a letter in reply to certain criticism of Sāvitrī . He speaks about the plan of Sāvitrī :— "It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or Comus or same brief narrative poem, but of the larger epical narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor R ā m ā yana; it aims not at the minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its ...
... and everywhere there is this length...in every part, in every passage, in almost every canto or section of a canto. Page 443 It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or Comus or some brief narrative poem, but of the longer epical narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor Ramayana; it aims not at a minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of ...
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