Anti-Spenserian Amaranth In Milton’s Lycidas
A particularly elegiac moment in Milton's mournful Lycidas can be found when his 'uncouth swain1 movingly implores Alpheus (the 'Sicilian muse') to raise himself from the ground and compel a number of radiant flowers to chastise themselves in memory of his dead friend.1 In a line...
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| Published in: | Notes and queries 2022-03, Vol.69 (1), p.28-31 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | A particularly elegiac moment in Milton's mournful Lycidas can be found when his 'uncouth swain1 movingly implores Alpheus (the 'Sicilian muse') to raise himself from the ground and compel a number of radiant flowers to chastise themselves in memory of his dead friend.1 In a line which can be easily overlooked within Milton's wide-reaching botanical list is the desire that Alpheus might 'Bid amaranthus his beauty shed.' While editors of Lycidas have linked this passage to Paradise Lost, where the amaranth makes another appearance as the immortal flower of heaven, its deeper classical roots and subsequent history of humanist and poetic reception have been largely overlooked. Moreover, while the appearance of the 'amaranthus' has been linked to poetic death in Spenser's Faerie Queene, the striking differences between how the Faerie Queene and Lycidas allude to the amaranth have remained unnoticed... |
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| ISSN: | 0029-3970 1471-6941 |