Discussion Topic
Analysis of key quotes from Milton's "Lycidas"
Summary:
Milton's "Lycidas" features several key quotes that encapsulate themes of mortality, pastoral beauty, and poetic legacy. For example, "Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more" reflects the poem's elegiac tone, while "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise" highlights the drive for poetic immortality. These quotes underscore the poem's contemplation of life, death, and artistic creation.
Analyze the following quotes from Milton's "Lycidas": "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil" and "Flames in the forehead of morning sky:"
John Milton in the poem, "Lycidas," is lamenting the loss of a friend (Edward King, a classmate) who drowned. Milton is considered the second most important English poet. With all those who had come before, Shakespeare and Jonson among them, Milton was still able to leave his mark in a unique way. He was familiar with classical literature and "works of the Judeo-Christian tradition." He was a strongly religious person himself, and his writing embraced the "importance of the individual"—in keeping with his most common topic:
...the soul in ethical conflict—the wayfaring, warfaring Christian.
In "Lycidas," Milton spends a great part of the poem speaking to the past and how they spent their time together and his bereavement that his friend is gone and will not return. He then turns to his need for others to remember his friend.
The first quote listed comes from the following passage, which...
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is in quotes, meaning that he cites it from another piece. It is quoted from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri By Dante Alighieri, also known simply as The Divine Comedy. It is not a comedy in the modern sense, and it basically tracks Dante's progression to Hell, then to Purgatory, and finally to Heaven. So the quotation is something Milton uses, originally written by Dante. The segment from which Milton takes the first line referred to must be taken in context with the rest of the passage. He is saying that one should not look for fame for our good deeds in this world, but in Heaven. The fame of mankind is nothing, but the fame pronounced of a life piously led should be sought upon meeting God. I believe he infers that things of the earth pass away, but things of Heaven do not.
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed."
The second quote, also read in context of the passage that it ends, states that those who mourn Lycidas should not do so, for he is not dead, though he may have drowned "beneath the watery floor." Milton then offers a metaphor comparing the drowning of Lycidas to the sun (the "day star") that also sinks into the ocean every evening, only to rise again and burn brightly in the sky, hence "flames in the forehead." The poem then continues to note that Lycidas may have died (been "sunk low") but he is now in Heaven ("mounted high"), so that one should not need to be sorrowful for him, but realize that he has been raised up by Christ (who "walked on waves").
Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor,
So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore,
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky…
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves...
It is easy to see Milton's concentration on the soul of mankind in reading his works. Here he laments the loss of a friend, but comforts others (and himself) with his belief that Lycidas is now in the presence of God.
Analyze the quote "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil" from Milton's "Lycidas".
This is an excellent question, focusing in real detail on the actual phrasing of the poem.
- A key image in this line involves the reference to a “plant.” The plant image is appropriate to the poem in several ways. The poem opens with plant imagery, and the entire poem is set in a rural landscape full of plants and imagery of growth. Various other plants, especially flowers, are mentioned in the poem. Since plants are associated with life, and since this is a poem that meditates on the sudden loss of life, the plant imagery is highly appropriate.
- The plant, as a symbol of life, is appropriate to Milton’s concern with achieving a kind of life, and a kind of fame, that will not die. Plants usually die off once a year, but Milton is seeking a kind of legacy that will not fade and will not die. Such a legacy can only be achieved (he later suggests) with the help of God and through commitment to God. Plants periodically die, but the kind of life and legacy Milton seeks is eternal.
- The plant imagery is appropriate to the poem’s larger themes, one of which involves trying to make sense of death. Just as plants seem to die but later revive, so the speaker of this poem manages to convince himself by the end of the work that his friend Lycidas is not truly dead but has “mounted high” (172), into heaven with God. Just as plants are reborn, so Lycidas has also been revived and resurrected.