Il Penseroso
Il Penseroso ( it. "The Thoughtful" or "The Pensive") is a poem by John Milton that was published in 1645. Invoking the personified melancholy or melancholy, it elevates the withdrawn, contemplative life to an ideal. The melancholy harmony of the soul with the world is the counterpart to the poem L'Allegro , which deals with the serenity in life and literature.
poem
While L'Allegro describes the day spent in the rural idyll , Il Penseroso evokes an antithesis to it. The narrator commits a nocturnal scene in which a monastery and a tower appear as places of retreat. He devotes himself to classical intellectual-literary studies such as philosophy, allegory or tragedy and hymn chants, which lead him to a final vision:
- And may at last my weary age | Find out the peaceful hermitage | The hairy gown and mossy cell | Where I may sit and rightly spell | Of every star that heav'n doth show | And every herb that sips the dew | Till old experience do attain | To something like prophetic strain | These pleasures, Melancholy, give / And I with thee will choose to live.
- And finally may my tired old age | Find the peaceful hermitage | The hairy robe and the cell overgrown with moss | Where I like to sit and read correctly | Every star that the sky shows | And every herb that soaks up the dew | Until many years of experience come close | Almost something like prophecy | These joys, melancholy, give | And with you I will choose to live.
The time when the poem was written is uncertain. Although it was only published in the Juvenile poems in 1645, its form and content point to the time shortly after leaving Cambridge, that is, to 1632. Il Penseroso - especially when coupled with L'Allegro - apparently falls into the genre of bucolic , how it was derived from Theocritus. Research suggests other strands of tradition, such as the Renaissance poetry of praise , Homeric hymns or Pindarian odes . The poem was widely received in post-poetry and other artistic implementations, especially in the 18th century. In 1740 Georg Friedrich Handel set the texts for the oratorio L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato , William Blake translated the poem as well as L'Allegro into pictures between 1816 and 1820, as did Thomas Cole in 1845. Il Penseroso is also valid with its closing lines as an essential source of inspiration for the phenomenon of decorative hermits that populated English landscape parks in the 18th and 19th centuries .
Illustrations for Il Penseroso
Milton in His Old Age by William Blake
Melancholy by William Blake
Il Penseroso by Thomas Cole
