L'Allegro is a pastoral

Pastoral

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...

 poem by John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 published in 1645. L'Allegro (which means "the happy man" in Italian) is invariably paired with the contrasting pastoral poem, Il Penseroso

Il Penseroso

Il Penseroso is a vision of poetic melancholy by John Milton. Presented in the 1645 folio of verses, The Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, Il Penseroso was presented as a companion piece to L'Allegro, a vision of poetic Mirth...

("the melancholy man"), which depicts a similar day spent in contemplation and thought.

Background

It is uncertain when L'Allegro and Il Penseroso were composed because they do not appear in Milton's Trinity College manuscript of poetry. However, the settings found in the poem suggest that they were possibly composed shortly after Milton left Cambridge. The two poems were first published in Milton's 1645 collection of poems. In the collection, they served as a balance to each other and to his Latin poems, including "Elegia 1" and "Elegia 6".

Poem

Milton follows the traditional classical hymn model when the narrator invokes Mirth/Euphrosyne

Euphrosyne (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Euphrosyne In Greek mythology, Euphrosyne In Greek mythology, Euphrosyne (Εὐφροσύνη; was one of the Charites, known in English also as the "Three Graces". Her best remembered representation in English is in Milton's poem of the active, joyful life, "L'Allegro". She is also the...

 and her divine parentage:

In Heav'n yclept Euphrosyne,

And by men, heart-easing Mirth,

Whom lovely Venus at a birth

With two sister Graces more

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore (lines 13–16)

The narrator continues by requesting Mirth to appear with:

Jest and youthful Jollity,

Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,

Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,

...

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides. (lines 26–28, 31–32)

Later, the narrator describes how Mirth is connected to pastoral environments:

Whilst the landscape round it measures,

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray

...

Meadows trim with daisies pied,

Shallow brooks, and rivers wide (lines 70–72, 75–76)

Near the end of the poem, the narrator requests from Mirth to be immersed in the poetry and the pleasures that Mirth is able to produce:

And ever against eating cares,

Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

Married to immortal verse

Such as the meeting soul may pierce (lines 135–138)

The final lines of the poem is a response to questions found within Elizabethan poetry, including Christopher Marlowe's "Come live with me and be my love":

These delights, if thou canst give,

Mirth with thee, I mean to live. (lines 151–152)

Themes

According to Barbara Lewalski, L'Allegro, along with Il Penseroso, "explore and contrast in generic terms the ideal pleasures appropriate to contrasting lifestyles... that a poet might choose, or might choose at different times, or in sequence". In particular, L'Allegro celebrates Grace Euphrosone through the traditional Theocritan pastoral model. The poem is playful and is set within a pastoral scene that allows the main character to connect with folk stories and fairy tales in addition to various comedic plays and performances. There is a sort of progression from the pleasures found in L'Allegro with the pleasures found within Il Penseroso. Besides being set in a traditional form, there is no poetic antecedent for Milton's pairing.

The poem invokes Mirth and other allegorical figures of joy and merriment, and extols the active and cheerful life, while depicting a day in the countryside according to this philosophy. Mirth, as one of the Graces, is connected with poetry within Renaissance literature, and the poem, in its form and content, is similar to dithrambs to Bacchus or hymns to Venus. However, the pleasure that Mirth brings is moderated, and there is a delicate balance between the influence of Venus or Bacchus achieved by relying on their daughter.

The poems have been classified in various traditions and genres by various scholars, including: as academic writing by E. M. W. Tillyard; as pastoral by Sara Watson; as part of classical philosophy by Maren-Sofie Rostvig; as part of Renaissance encomia by S. P. Woodhouse and Douglas Bush, and as similar to Homeric hymns and Pindaric odes. Stelle Revard believes that the poems follow the classical hymn model which discuss goddess that are connected to poetry and uses these females to replace Apollo completely.

Critical reception

During the eighteenth century, both L'Allegro and Il Penseroso were popular and were widely imitated by poets. The poet and engraver William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

, who was deeply influenced by Milton's poetry and personality, made illustrations to both L'Allegro and Il Penseroso.

Revard believes that Milton, in his first publication of poems, "takes care to showcase himself as a poet in these first and last selections and at the same time to build his poetic reputation along the way by skillful positioning of poems such as 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso.'"

External links

• "L'Allegro"
• William Blake's illustrations
• Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
  L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
  L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato is a pastoral ode by George Frideric Handel based on the poetry of John Milton.-History:Handel composed the work over the period of 19 January to 4 February 1740, and the work was premiered on 27 February 1740 at the Royal Theatre of Lincoln's Inn Fields...
  
  , based partly on this poem.