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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.

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

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