Remember when I read you Milton’s Lycidas, about the drowned shepherd who wasn’t dead at all?

Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compels me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas?

This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Milton wrote ‘Lycidas’ in 1637, at the age of 29, to commemorate the drowning of the poet ...

This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Milton wrote ‘Lycidas’ in 1637, at the age of 29, to commemorate the drowning of the poet ...

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.