|
|
Article: On the value of 'Lycidas.'
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- January 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Rice University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Lycidas is one of the most widely and highly valued poems ever written. Critics have called it "the high-water mark of English Poesy and of [John] Milton's own production,"(1) considered it "probably the most perfect piece of pure literature in existence,"(2) held "it to be the greatest short poem of any author in English, the very criterion and touchstone of poetical taste,"(3) and declared it "the most perfect poem of its length in the English language."(4) Examples of such hyperbolic praise abound in Lycidas criticism, and they bear witness to the delight which has drawn readers continuously and repeatedly to the poem.(5)
This essay attempts to explain how Lycidas ...