“Lycidas”: The Pastoral Elegy as Same-Sex Epithalamium

2002/03/01 by Bruce Boehrer
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment

paper · doi:10.1632/003081202x61377

openalex publication_date 2002/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

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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