L'Allegro

L'Allegro is a pastoral poem by John Milton published in his 1645 Poems. L'Allegro (which means "the happy man" in Italian) is invariably paired with the contrasting pastoral poem, Il Penseroso ("the melancholy man"), which depicts a similar day spent in contemplation and thought.

It is uncertain when L'Allegro and Il Penseroso were composed because they do not appear in Milton's Trinity College manuscript of poetry. However, the settings found in the poem suggest that they were possibly composed shortly after Milton left Cambridge. The two poems were first published in Poems of Mr. John Milton both English and Latin, compos'd at several times dated 1645 but probably issued early in 1646. In the collection, they served as a balance to each other and to his Latin poems, including "Elegia 1" and "Elegia 6".

Milton follows the traditional classical hymn model when the narrator invokes Mirth/Euphrosyne and her divine parentage:

The narrator continues by requesting Mirth to appear with:

Later, the narrator describes how Mirth is connected to pastoral environments:

Near the end of the poem, the narrator requests from Mirth to be immersed in the poetry and the pleasures that Mirth is able to produce:

The final lines of the poem is a response to questions found within Elizabethan poetry, including Christopher Marlowe's "Come live with me and be my love":

According to Barbara Lewalski, L'Allegro, along with Il Penseroso, "explore and contrast in generic terms the ideal pleasures appropriate to contrasting lifestyles... that a poet might choose, or might choose at different times, or in sequence". In particular, L'Allegro celebrates Grace Euphrosone through the traditional Theocritan pastoral model. The poem is playful and is set within a pastoral scene that allows the main character to connect with folk stories and fairy tales in addition to various comedic plays and performances. There is a sort of progression from the pleasures found in L'Allegro with the pleasures found within Il Penseroso. Besides being set in a traditional form, there is no poetic antecedent for Milton's pairing.

The poem invokes Mirth and other allegorical figures of joy and merriment, and extols the active and cheerful life, while depicting a day in the countryside according to this philosophy. Mirth, as one of the Graces, is connected with poetry within Renaissance literature, and the poem, in its form and content, is similar to dithrambs to Bacchus or hymns to Venus. However, the pleasure that Mirth brings is moderated, and there is a delicate balance between the influence of Venus or Bacchus achieved by relying on their daughter.

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