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“Lycidas”: The Pastoral Elegy as Same-Sex Epithalamium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Bruce Boehrer
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Abstract

Milton's “Lycidas” deploys a variety of matrimonial references—classical and Christian—within an elegiac context that simultaneously manifests anxiety over feminine sexuality. The result is a poem whose erotic investments, coexisting as they do with a general preference for masculine over feminine companionship, tend to settle into patterns of same-sex attachment. These culminate in the “unexpressive nuptial song” of the poem's conclusion, which figures spiritual consummation in matrimonial terms while implicitly positioning Lycidas in the role of bride.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 117 , Issue 2 , March 2002 , pp. 222 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2002

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