The Sources and Traditions of Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso: A New Approach

Abstract

Up to now, nothwithstanding their Italian titles, the sources and traditions of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso have mainly been sought in early modern English literature; in this essay, however, they are for the greater part linked to Italian Renaissance literature, art and music. This approach yielded some interesting results of which the most important are as follows: a) regarding the concept of contrasting characterisations in L'Allegro and Il Penseroso Milton may have been inspired by Michelangelo's statues of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici in the new sacristy at San Lorenzo in Florence, representing respectively the active life (vita activa) and the contemplative life (vita contemplativa); that Michelangelo's statue of Lorenzo de' Medici in present-day critical discussion is referred to as Il Penseroso need not be a coincidence; b) there is evidence that the banishment with which the poems begin has origins in the carnivalesque tradition, the device of banishment as part of the structure of the poems has links with the philosophical discours of the time; and c) the frequent occurrence of physical movements, namely steps and gestures in the text of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso affords a link with Monteverdi's musical composition in the genere rappresentativo of Tancredi and Clorinda, showing the poems' suitability for being performed, they may have been meant to function as intermezzi. In the end a final structural image of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso emerges, which can be considered to reflect the humanist philosophical debate of the time on the relative merits of the active life and the contemplative life, that is of Mirth and Melancholy, and on the individual's moral independence, that is his moral liberty of choice.