Lycidas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A pastoral elegy that reflects on the themes of loss and immortality
2. A poetic tribute that mourns the death of a beloved figure while contemplating the nature of mortality
3. A work that explores grief and remembrance through rich imagery and emotion

Etymology: Lycidas is a shepherd's name from ancient Greek pastoral poetry. The Greek poet Theocritus gave it to a herdsman in his idylls, and the convention of shepherds mourning a lost companion passed to later poets, including Virgil. John Milton borrowed that mask for a real loss. Edward King, a Cambridge classmate of Milton's, drowned when the ship he was travelling on sank in the Irish Sea. Milton cast King as the shepherd Lycidas, so the poem's rural setting and its sheep and pipes stand in for a university friendship and a death at sea. The poem was published in a memorial volume for King. Milton's poem also turns the classical convention against itself. Its shepherds question whether poetry is worth anything when death can come so suddenly, and the grief slides into doubt before it resolves.