No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
’ That Fatal and Perfidious Bark’: A Key to the Double Design and Unity of Milton's Lycidas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
John Milton's description in Lycidas of the shipwreck that caused the death of Edward King has generally been interpreted along historical and naturalistic lines. In this essay I want to show that the image of the ship as Ecclesia or the Church, coming as it does in almost the exact center of Lycidas, sheds new light on Milton's use of the Christian and humanistic traditions, its single image identifying and being used to unify his twin aims of satire and elegy.
Merritt Y. Hughes, in his edition of Milton's poetry and major prose, refers to the example of ‘disastrous twilight’ in Paradise Lost (1.597) to explain the reference to ‘th’ eclipse’ (1. 101) as the time of the ship's construction.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1977
References
1 John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose (New York, 1957), p. 123, n. 101.
2 John Milton: Complete Poetical Works, Cambridge ed. (Boston, 1965), p. 145, n. 101.
3 Poems of Mr. John Milton: The 1645 Edition with Essays in Analysis (New York, 1951), p. 178.
4 See G.G.L., ‘Milton! Built in th’ eclipse [“Lycidas,” 101],’ N&Q, 79 (1940), 9; and T. O. Mabbott, ibid., pp. 141-142.
5 The Works of John Milton (New York, 1932), 1, 80. All further references will follow this edition and appear in the essay, giving volume and page, except for references to Lycidas, which will give line only.
6 Thomas Newton, ed., ‘Paradise Regained,’ a Poem in Four Books. To Which Is Added ‘Samson Agonistes'; and Poems upon Several Occasions (1752). In Elledge, Scott, ed., Milton's ‘Lycidas': Edited to Serve as an Introduction to Criticism (New York, 1966), p. 286, nn. 100, 101Google Scholar.
7 Poems upon Several Occasions: English, Italian, and Latin, with Translations (1785) cited in Elledge.
8 The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Albert Feuillerat (Cambridge, 1923), III. 37.
9 Christian Iconography: A Study of the Origins (Princeton, 1968), pp. 7-11, 23-25, 48.
10 ‘Area ilia, juxta apostolum Petrum (I Petr. 3, 20), typus Ecclesiae fuit.’ PL 23.147 (267).
11 The Homilies of Saint Jerome, tr. Sister Marie Liguori Ewald, I.H.M. (Washington, D.C., 1966), II, 248.
12 ‘Haec est ilia navis quae adhuc secundum Matthaeum fluctuat (Matt. 8, 24), secundum Lucam repletur piscibus; ut et principia Ecclesiae fluctuantis, et posteriora exuberantis agnoscas.’ PL 15.1633 (1352). Both the economy and the balance of Jerome's language are particularly resonant here; and I want to thank Francis A. Laine of the Classics Department and Thomas Minor of the Library of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as well as Harriet Leonard of the Duke University Library in Durham, for their help with the passage.
13 ‘Noe, qui interpretatur requies, similitudinem praefert Domini, in cujus Ecclesia requiescunt quicunque ab hujus saeculi excidio liberantur, sicut in area.’ PL 83.102 (119).
14 Romanesque Mural Painting (New York, 1968), pp. 47, 421.
15 The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, tr. from 3rd ed. by Dora Nussey (1913; rpt. New York, 1958), p. 154.
16 Stained Glass of the Middle Ages in England and France (London, 1913), pp. 24, 63.
17 2000 Years of Christian Art (New York, 1966), p. 202. The print is taken from Johann Lichtenberger's Prenostication, printed in Germany in 1526, and reproduced through the courtesy of the British Library. Its heading reads literally, ‘The Church in the Ship with Its Oars, Listing and Floundering.'
18 The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton (Boston, 1941), p. 16.
19 Newton and Neil, p. 208. The prints are taken from Lucas Cranach's Passional Christi und Antichristi, printed in Wittenberg in 1521, and reproduced through the courtesy of the British Library. The caption below the rising Christ reads: ‘In their sight he was lifted up, and the clouds have removed him from their eyes. This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will therefore come again in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven. Acts 1. His kingdom has no end. Luke 1. Whoever serves me in this world, he will follow after me; and where I am, there will my servant also be. John 12.’ The caption below the fallen pope reads: ‘The beast is captured, and with it the false prophet, who through it has worked the signs whereby he has led astray those who have received the sign [of the beast] from him and worshiped his image. These are cast down into the depths of fire and sulphur, and are slain with the sword of him who rides upon the white horse, that issues from his mouth. Apocalypse 19. Then will be made visible the deceitful one, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his “*»mouth and cast down through the glory of his coming. 2 Thessalonians 2.’
20 Cited in Saurat, Denis, Milton: Man and Thinker (New York, 1925), p. 35 Google Scholar.
21 Ibid., p. 36. ‘ “Lourdan” quoth the philosopher,’ in response to the wen's self-defense, ‘ “thy folly is as great as thy filth: know that all the faculties of the soul are confined of old to their several vessels and ventricles, from which they cannot part without dissolution of the whole body; and that thou containest no good thing in thee, but a heap of hard and loathsome uncleanness, and art to the head a foul disfigurement and burden, when I have cut thee off, and opened thee, as by the help of these implements I will do, and all men shall see.” ‘
22 Ibid., pp. 11, 31, 32.
23 ‘Anima scilicet, quae dominium corporis habet'; ‘corpus utique: quod quia terrenum est, animae debet esse subjectum.’ ‘Est enim quasi vasculum, quo tamquam domicilio temporali spiritus hie coelestis utatur.’ PL 6.321.
24 See A Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. John Julian (New York, 1957), I, 835; II, 989-991.
25 Fletcher, p. 17.
26 T. O. Mabbott, ‘Milton's Lycidas, 164,’ Expl, 5 (February 1947), 26.
27 Edward Schweitzer, ‘Milton's Lycidas, 164,’ Expl, 28 (October 1969), 18.
28 Real-Encyklopaedie der Christlichen Alterthümer, ed. F. X. Kraus (1886), II, 732.
29 Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings, ed. R. T. Davies (Evanston, 1965), p. 335.
30 Eliot, T. S., ‘The Metaphysical Poets,’ in Selected Essays, new ed. (New York, 1932), p. 247 Google Scholar.
31 Schweitzer, p. 18.
32 ‘In hac igitur societate coeli atque terrae, quorum effigies in homine expressa est, superiorem partem tenent ea quae sunt Dei, anima scilicet, quae dominium corporis habet; inferiorem autem ea quae sunt diaboli, corpus utique: quod quia terrenum est, animae debet esse subjectum, sicut terra coelo. Utriusque officia sunt, ut hoc, quod est ex coelo et Deo, imperet, illud vero, quod ex terra est et diabolo, serviat.’ PL 6.321-322.