L’Allegro & Il Penseroso
• In 1991 Casey Finch and Peter Bowen wrote that neither
poems ‘can stop thinking and dreaming about its companion’
• In 1983, Gerard H. Cox wrote that ‘it is obvious that L'Allegro
and Il Penseroso are companion poems, but precisely how
and why they are related remains an open question’
• In her book The Gendering of Melancholia, Juliana Schiesari
writes that the very nature of the melancholic was to be that
of a ‘self split against itself’
‘Plotting’ Episodes
L’ Allegro – The Cheerful Man
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Banishment of Melancholy (1-10)
Invitation to Mirth (11-24)
Catalogue of Mirth’s companies (25-26)
Pastoral depiction of the world (57-88)
Concluding distich (151-152)
Il Penseroso –The Pensive Man
1. Banishment of ‘vain deluding joys’ (1-10)
2. Invitation to melancholy (11-30)
3. Catalogue of Melancholy’s companion (3164)
4. Description of nocturnal stroll (65-76)
5. Concluding distich (175-176)
End- rhyme – abbacddeec
(line 11 onwards rhyming couplets)
Hence loathed Melancholy
Of Cerebus , and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn
‘Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights
unholy;
Find some uncouth cell,
Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous
wings,
And the night raven sings;
There under Ebon shades, and low-brow’d rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell
Hence vain deluding joys,
The brooding folly without father bred,
How little you bested,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys;
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Mopheus’ train
Similar Images
Opening: Hence loathed Melancholy
Opening: Hence vain deluding joys
Line 4: Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy;
Line 5: idle
Lines 6-7: brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings
And the night raven sings
Lines 33-34: Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe
Lines 31-32: Come pensive Nun devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure
Lines 41-42: To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night
Lines 12-13: Hail divinest Melancholy!
Saintly visage is too bright
Closing: Those delights if thou cans’t give
Mirth, with thee I mean to live
Closing: These pleasures, Melancholy, give
and with thee will choose to live
Intertextual
IntertextualMeaning
Meaning
• • The
Thetwo
twopoems
poemstypographical
typographicalcontinuity,
continuity,form
form
and
andcontent
contentclearly
clearlylinks
linksL’Allegro
L’Allegroand
andIlIlPenseroso
Penseroso
• • However
HoweverasasCox
Coxhas
hasargued
arguedthere
thereisismuch
muchdebate
debate
over
overwhat
whatthis
thislink
linkmeans
means
• • Many
Manycritics
criticssuch
suchasasTillyard
Tillyardhave
haveseen
seenthe
thepoems
poems
asascombative
combativeororopposing
opposing
• • AAbattle
battlebetween
betweenDay
Dayand
andNight/Mirth
Night/Mirthand
and
Melancholy
Melancholy
Galenic vs. Aristotelian
• Works of critics Babb and Samuels has placed the poems in
the genre of mediaeval debate or Renaissance disputation
• Two types of melancholy
 Black melancholy responsible for severe medical depression
 Aristotelian ‘gold tinged with purple’ melancholy, the concern
of the poet
• This reading focuses on the latter as the ‘highest of mans
artistic achievements’ (Miller)
• Evidence to support this lies in the choice of Penseroso rather
that Melancholio in the title
Prioritising Il Penseroso
•This reading leads to critics
arguing Milton prefers Il Penseroso
•Ascetic life of study vs. Dionysian
pleasure seeking
•Arguably seen in his sixth elegy
addressed to Charles Diodati
Reading
ReadingMilton
Miltonthrough
throughMilton?
Milton?
WScott
ScottHoward
Howardhas
hasargued
arguedthat
thatthis
this
•• W
subordinationof
ofL’Allegro
L’Allegroto
toIlIlPenseroso
Penserosoisisaa
subordination
resultof
ofreading
readingthe
thepoems
poemsprogressively
progressivelyas
as
result
recordsof
ofMilton
Miltonmaturing
maturing
records
ColinBurrows
Burrowsargues
arguespoems
poemsare
arenot
not
•• Colin
necessarilyor
orexplicitly
explicitlyautobiographical
autobiographical
necessarily
Musingon
on‘undirected’
‘undirected’on
ondifferent
different
•• Musing
temperaments
temperaments
Fluidity
• Fluidly associative syntax invites reader not to
make firm choices
• No grammatical subject of many of the clauses
• Though Greene has argued Il Penseroso has
less drifting parataxis, ‘whimsically free
reading’ still creates meandering thoughts
• Poems refuse singular and simple meaning
Further thoughts
• Creation of a voice that has continuity with
other poems in the collection, leads on both
to the whimsical lovers in the sonnets and to
the erotic visions of the elegies
• Perhaps not opposing parts of
pleasure/wisdom but a warning of
intemperance in either direction- forerunner
to Milton’s examination of excess in Paradise
Lost
Frontispiece to the 1645
edition of the Poems of
John Milton
1740
International
Music Score
Library Project
William
Blake’s
‘Mirth’
c.1816-20
“goddess fair and free”
“frolic wind”
“fresh-blown roses washed in dew”
“... buxom, blithe and debonair”
Allegorical
Celebration of the happy
Pastoral
Cheerful life
Blakearchive.org
William
Blake’s
‘Melancholy’
c.1816-20
“goddess, sage and holy”
“black staid wisdom’s hue”
“come pensive nun, devout
and pure,”
“sober, steadfast and demure”
“secret shades”
Digressive
Gothic scene
Melancholic reverie
‘Milton’s Mysterious Dream’
‘Milton in His Old Age’