Studies in literature . enseroso, Comus, and Lycidas. After receiving his de-gree from Cambridge, Milton retired to a country place atHorton, and devoted himself to the pursuit of poetry. Thegraceful and charming qualities of his mind here found freeplay. L Allegro and // Penseroso represent two moods ofthe poet, the keen delight in mirth of a light yet wholesomecharacter, and the more serious delight in reflection, music,and religious musing. Comus, a mask, shows also thebrighter side of Miltons character, the side which is leastPuritanic. Lycioas is universally considered one of his most fin
Studies in literature . enseroso, Comus, and Lycidas. After receiving his de-gree from Cambridge, Milton retired to a country place atHorton, and devoted himself to the pursuit of poetry. Thegraceful and charming qualities of his mind here found freeplay. L Allegro and // Penseroso represent two moods ofthe poet, the keen delight in mirth of a light yet wholesomecharacter, and the more serious delight in reflection, music,and religious musing. Comus, a mask, shows also thebrighter side of Miltons character, the side which is leastPuritanic. Lycioas is universally considered one of his most finishedpoems. It is a lament for the death of a college acquaint-ance, Edward King, who was drowned in the Irish literary form is the conventional pastoral. Milton andKing are represented as shepherds who tend their sheep andplay rustic music. But the poem is not intended to repre-sent real country life; it is only a translation of the experi-ence of the two into pastoral imagery. For instance whenMilton says:. THE PURITAN AGE 245 For we were nursed upon the self-same hillFed the same flock, by fountain, shade and rill, he means that he and King went to college together (ChristsCollege, Cambridge) and engaged in the same studies andpursuits. Every detail in the poem does not have a hiddenmeaning, but the conventional pastoral imagery is used in ageneral way to express the experience of the two also expresses in the poem his idea of the state ofliterature and of the church. The poem also illustrates therich color and varied music of Miltons early verse. The Second Period. Areopagitica. — During thesecond period, Alilton wrote no poetry except occasionalsonnets, for much of his time was occupied with politicalcontroversies. He held the position of Secretary for ForeignTongues under the Puritan government. Most of his officialwriting was in Latin. Only occasionally did he produce apiece of genuine English prose literature. Such is the Areo-pagitica, a vigoro
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