Guess what? In less than two hours I can sign up for summer courses downstate! Guess what? I'm nervous they'll all be taken by now! Poo!
Lent has officially started. No more coffee, candy, pop, smoking or drinking for me. Coffee and candy will be the only hard ones on there, to be honest. But LORD, will they be difficult. I've also taken on writing 5-10 solid pages a day. It can be in diaries, fiction, poetry (although a poem a page long counts as half a page), and this week, essays (I have two more to finish, but luckily they have been started and won't result in more all nighters).
What am I drinking? Orange and spice tea. Pro tip: don't drink it without honey. It is yucky without honey. Lack of honey in this tea = gross tea.
Sadly, I have no honey.
Here's my essay. Critique, please. I know it's not great. It's weirdly colloquial and poorly organized. But hey. It's an essay that didn't exist three hours ago.
Milton’s Mirth and Melancholy
It is interesting to read John Milton’s Il Penseroso directly after reading his L’Allegro. The contrast is readily apparent, even upon an initial glance at the titles of each respective poem. The word allegro translates to joyful, cheerful, mirthful. In the poem L’Allegro itself, Milton is invoking Mirth itself as a “Goddes fair and free” (L’Allegro, 11) to bring jubilance and pastoral merriment along with the break of day; meanwhile, Il Penseroso (the pensive, the thoughtful, the somber) invokes Melancholy appear, a “Goddes, sage and holy” (Il Penseroso, 11).
The most immediately interesting aspect of both L’Allegro and Il Penseroso is the denunciation of its counterpart within the first ten lines of the poem. L’Allegro introduces the concept of melancholy and night before hinting at merriment, perhaps to amplify the brooding drear it perceives in pensive darkness. Strangely, Melancholy is described in the first stanza as “unholy” (L’Allegro, 4), despite the fact that, of the two, Il Penseroso takes on a religious tone while L’Allegro is immersed in mythology and folklore. Meanwhile, Il Penseroso criticizes Mirth’s inability to profit from its merriment, calling the fanciful notions of the lighthearted “As thick and numberless/As the gay motes that people the Sun Beams” (Il Penseroso, 8-9). This is interesting to me, since it seems that only an imaginative mind with time for fancy takes note of the dust particles illuminated by sunlight and connect those meaningless little motes with Fancy itself.
It is interesting that both invocations pronounce Mirth and Melancholy to be goddesses. It seems there is perhaps a distinct difference between the two invocations that goes beyond the conflicting natures of the two themes. It stands to reason that Mirth would be represented by a mirthful deity and that Melancholy would be represented by a melancholic deity, but the associations are not nearly so evident as one would assume. Mirth is represented as a Classical goddess of antiquity, later compared to Venus, the three Graces and nymphs (L’Allegro, 14-15, 25) and is aligned with Bacchus, Zephyr—or “Zephir”—and Aurora (L’Allegro, 16 & 19) as well. Melancholy, on the other hand, is represented by Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth. It is interesting that Milton chose the equivalent of Hestia to represent Melancholy, considering the sister of Demeter and Hera gave up her seat to Dionysus in order to tend the fires of Mount Olympus, separating herself from the original Greek Pantheon. It is also interesting to note that Vesta is, by all accounts, a virgin goddess. It can be inferred that the invocation of Mirth is an entreaty to the idea of mirth itself and its personification of a halcyon deity, while the invocation of Melancholy takes on a more religious connotation. Perhaps, by affiliating Melancholy with a goddess represented by ever-burning fire, Milton means to connote the fiery passion of prayer, and asserts that the intensity of intellectual and spiritual devotion trumps the lighthearted spirit of Mirth. This would explain why the second stanza states that Melancholy’s “Saintly visage is too bright/To hit the Sense of human sight” (Il Penseroso, 13-14). Surely, Milton’s definition of melancholy must differ from that of the Merriman-Webster dictionary.
Mirth and Melancholy are not only likened to goddesses. Milton associates Mirth with the fantastical, mentioning the “Faery Mab” (L’Allegro, 102) of folklore and a “Goblin” as staples of mirthful conversation. Like in many other of his works, Milton seems to grapple with a love of legends and a desire to uphold religion above all and any mythology. In order to satiate this desire, Milton personifies Melancholy as a “pensive Nun, devout and pure/Sober, stedfast, and demure” (Il Penseroso, 31-32), and requests that she “Forget thy self to Marble” (Il Penseroso, 42). By linking Melancholy with marble and, later, with lead (Il Penseroso, 43)—a metal said to be a metal associated with the Roman god Saturn, the contemplative god—almost appears to be Milton’s method of grounding his own zealousness in favor of “Contemplation,/And the mute Silence” (Il Penseroso, 54-55). Though composure is a staple of Milton’s concept of melancholy, he allows himself to be carried away with an irrepressible fervor, which is alternately presented and chided by the poet. This is where I feel we encounter the writer’s spirit. There was a reason for writing both L’Allegro and Il Penseroso. Firstly, it appears Milton wanted to prove the superiority of Melancholy. Secondly, and less obviously, it appears Milton was conscious of a war waging within himself. Perhaps war is too strong a word. A conflict broke out within the young Milton, one he half knew the answer to: which should I live by, mirth or melancholy? While he clearly chose melancholy, I believe Milton could not repress a fervency within himself, a passion for more than marble and lead. Thus, Il Penseroso—the more complex of the two poems—wavers between the approbation of the somber, stern and silent, and the emancipation of spiritual ardency and ripe emotion.
Mirth and Melancholy are associated not only with goddesses and pious women, but with birds. Mirth, personified by both the cock and the lark (L’Allegro, 41 & 49), signifies the coming of day. Melancholy on the other hand, like that phantom someday to come from Leroux’ novel, disdains the garish light of day and seeks refuge in “Philomel” (Il Penseroso, 56), the nightingale who, paired with Cynthia of the moon, pulls the shade of night and “shunn’st the noise of folly” (Il Penseroso, 61) that day inevitably brings. But the night of Il Penseroso, by the end of the poem, does not seem to be brought about by nature. Rather, the “Mossy Cell” (Il Penseroso, 169) of the ivory tower constructs an artificial night, a constant hour of contemplation. Perhaps that is why the lark wishes to “startle the dull night” (L’Allegro, 41); perhaps, even if only subconsciously, Milton sees a flaw in his isolated hermitage.
One odd complementary aspect of the poems L’Allegro and Il Penseroso is their mutual claim on Orpheus. Or rather, both claim that the assistance of Mirth, or alternately, Melancholy, could have gained Eurydice back from the dead. The invoker of Mirth ends with the story of Orpheus, and states that if Mirth could succeed where Orpheus failed, he would live by Mirth’s ways. In Il Penseroso, the invoker states that Melancholy could draw tears from Pluto and make “Hell grant what Love did seek” (Il Penseroso, 108). While neither have sound reasons for claiming Orpheus, it is said that nightingales sang over his grave beneath Mount Olympus. If that is the case, favor would learn toward Il Penseroso. One wonders if Milton took that knowledge into account while writing both poems.
Though L’Allegro and Il Penseroso deal with opposing theories and doctrines and lifestyles, Milton’s arguments for the each poem suggests that he does not desire a clear, decisive, outright winner. Though L’Allegro is not as concisely defended, it does not doubt its own premises in the way Il Penseroso does. It is not in Mirth’s nature to doubt itself. It is Melancholy that is suited to observation, reflection, and intellection. Mirth, on the other hand, is a celebration of imagination, vivacity, nature and, at its utmost, life. Both poems require the ability to appreciate an aspect of existence, and though Milton subtly aligns himself with Il Penseroso, it is certain that Melancholy acknowledges the merits of Mirth. Mirth, in turn, has no reason to reflect on Melancholy, unless to provide one quick smirk. This is as it should be.
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