Milton’s use of pastoral as a means of institutional criticism in Lycidas

Abstract

John Milton’s Lycidas is a pastoral elegy written in 1637 after the death of an idealized man of religion, Edward King. Reflecting the lament of the persona for the loss of a sound man intended for the Church, Lycidas is rooted in the classical tradition and embodies all the qualities of the pastoral. Incorporated into the pastoral qualities of the poem is a part where St Peter gives voice to the follies of the contemporary clergy, which turns the poem into a means of criticism. The poem emphasises that while a great man of religion like Lycidas dies, the failing ones survive despite all their material interests and ignorance of society. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to analyse Milton’s Lycidas as an example of pastoral where Milton brings together the classical tradition with institutional criticism. This article will analyse the poem in context, and reminding the ideas of Archbishop Laud, it will argue that the use of the shepherd image as a pastor-poet, as in the case of the classical pastoral tradition, provides Milton with the means to delve into the use of the image of the shepherd in the Christian imagery. This, in turn, enables him to discuss the conditions of the poet and of poetry in the seventeenth century.