ABSTRACT
Phoebus’ speech in Lycidas is usually read as a thinly veiled Christian warning and consolation, but the Christian implication of Phoebus’ metaphorical plant of fame has not been recognized. Here, as elsewhere, Milton uses the metaphor of a plant which flowers “aloft” to describe the workings of grace, and his use is grounded in the theological conception of being ingrafted in Christ. This conception, as explained in The Christian Doctrine, emphasizes that the god of poetry is concerned primarily with the necessity of living deeds, rather than with the heavenly rewards envisioned in the final consolation. In response to the singer's depressed sense of the futility of human enterprise, Phoebus insists on human action. This reading helps place the emphasis of Lycidas on a living response to death. These lines are of a piece with the poem's remarkable close, wherein, by focusing on the elegist's act of singing, Milton suggests we see Lycidas finally as a living act of faith, a paradigm of Christian action.
