Resurrection (Motif)
Resurrection appears again and again in "Lycidas," both in Milton's description of the sun rising and setting, and in his allusions to classical mythology. One example is his reference to the Arethuse. The Arethuse is the name of a real fountain in Sicily thought to inspire poets. Though Milton does not tell the full story of the Arethuse in his poem, his readers would have known it from other writers. According to Ovid, the Arethuse formed after a river nymph attempted to run from a river god. She fled beneath the sea as the god pursued her, until an opening appeared in the Earth, giving her one last chance at escape. The fountain now stands at the spot where the nymph tried to break through. By alluding to the Arethuse, Milton evokes the story of something new and beautiful forming out of pain, a version of the resurrection to which his poem ultimately aspires.
Pastoral Poetry (Allegory)
Milton always remains skeptical of the genre in which he is writing. Though “Lycidas” is a pastoral elegy, it is also a poem about why a pastoral elegy can never fully express grief. His speaker is constantly running up against the limits of the form, smirking at the tradition he draws upon to express his sorrow for the death of Lycidas. Pastoral poetry becomes an allegory for all the conventions for expressing grief—the pomp of funerals, speeches, burials—indeed, of any ceremony that tries to master a feeling that can never truly be contained.
Water (symbol)
Milton uses water as a symbol for grief throughout “Lycidas.” His speaker begins to sing of Lycidas for fear his death will go “unwept” in the first stanza. When he calls upon the muses to fill his urn with water—to inspire his poetry—he turns water into a metaphor for creative inspiration as well. The contradiction between these two images is also a contradiction at the bottom of the poem. Even as Milton mourns his dead friend, he himself is pulsing with life and his own creative ambitions, and he can’t suppress his desire to create something new—to write the poem we’re reading.
Orpheus (allegory)
Though Milton mentions Orpheus just once in “Lycidas,” his story is always running in the background of the poem. Orpheus was the greatest singer in Greek mythology, a figure similar to the singing shepherds in pastoral poetry. He learned to sing from Apollo—who also guides Milton’s speaker—and became legendary when he descended to the underworld to take his wife back from the grave. Using music as his guide, Orpheus tried to return his wife to Earth, but he lost her forever when he looked back at her face too soon. His story captures the fantasy behind “Lycidas”: that the speaker can call Lycidas back to life by writing a poem. Every time the speaker loses himself in descriptions of the landscape, beautiful images that call back the happiness of his friendship with Lycidas, he is guiding his friend back to life. When he recalls his friend’s death, he loses Lycidas all over again and falls into despair. Like Orpheus, he always loses Lycidas before the resurrection is complete. And like Orpheus, he can’t stop looking back. He’s trapped in the past, in his memories of his dead friend, and his poetry struggles to move beyond his grief.
Shepherds (motif)
In pastoral poetry, the shepherds who sing of their lost loves are always grieving. Their tears never end, and eventually their mourning becomes part of their identity. Though they might seem to beat themselves in despair, their mourning is always a performance. They don’t actually want to conquer their sadness, because their misery is part of their act. In “Lycidas,” Milton is trying to break out of this tradition. Unlike the shepherds in pastoral poetry, his speaker finds consolation. The poem ends with the possibility of his speaker moving to new pastures beyond his grief. In order to conquer his own despair, Milton also upends a tradition where the speakers never leave their sadness behind. As the speaker leaves his grief behind in the final stanza he leaves the pastoral tradition behind as well, exchanging it for the Christian promise of rebirth.
