Lycidas Analysis

ntro- In John Milton's poem Lycidas, the speaker grieves the death of his friend Lycidas. While doing a surface reading reading of this poem it is suggested by the speaker that he is frustrated over the death of his friend. However, does the speaker really care about Lycidas’s death? Through further analysis its shown that this poem actually is less about Lycidas and was written for selfish reasons; we begin to realize that the speaker is less concerned with Lycidas’ death and more worried about his own. Therefore, although this eloquent poem of one hundred and ninety-three lines may falsely appear to be written to remember the death of Lycidas, we must question his intrinsic sadness. <From the the poems underlying message we see that he fears death himself more than he is sad about Lycidas-writing about him was more of an aid to gather his thoughts on death.(thesis)> Body 1- First, we can see that the speaker fears that because Lycidas died having no fame his own death will be unlamented as well, this causes him to write this poem in fear of lacking fame in mortality. In the very first line we see that the speaker is uncomfortable with his expertise and experience with poetry. He begins saying: I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, And with forc’d fingers rude
From his use of words such as harsh, crude, and force we notice that in this setting the speaker seems unhappy. An obvious reading will show that the speaker is violently picking berries off of the plant before they are even ripe. In other words, he is picking the fruit too early. He shows us early off that he begins in a position where he is uncomfortable and unhappy which is causing him to want to break out violently. This substance of poem, in this case, is the berry which is being picked too early. This speaker is not yet in a position with the talent to obtain fame. Body 2- Similarly, the idea that the speaker is not ready to write this elaborate poem plays into the speakers fear of his