Speaker
Milton gives no biography for his speaker in “L’Allegro,” but the form of the speaker’s argument echoes the songs sung by shepherds in pastoral poetry, and it's easy to imagine him as a figure like one of those shepherds.
Mirth
Mirth is the goddess that guides the speaker’s poetry in “L’Allegro.” In the Renaissance, the word “mirth” could describe happiness, the pleasures of the material world, the pleasures of heaven, a celebration, or a performance. Before Milton wrote “L’Allegro,” Mirth had appeared as a goddess guiding other poems. Anacreon, a Greek poet famous for his drinking songs, wrote a hymn to Mirth in which he celebrated his sexual escapades.
Melancholy
Melancholy is the goddess that guides the speaker in "Il Penseroso." In the Renaissance, Melancholy was both a medical condition, analogous to depression, and a way of being in the world. Milton's readers would have associated it with an artistic temperament.
