A allusion to Milton in the first album

[Uncouth Swain]

I just discovered NC via their first album a couple weeks ago, and of course I'm hooked. By an extraordinary coincidence, I read John Milton's elegy Lycidas for the first time that same day. I think the titles of one of the instrumental pieces is an allusion to this poem, but I won't spoil it for you. Here's the poem: Lycidas (http://www.bartleby.com/101/317.html).

So what do you all think?

[chickzilla]

perhaps, though there's no way of knowing. i did not have to read it as i have already been made to in a college course and wondered the same thing myself, but only in passing because that phrase is pretty common in just referring to death, or the moving on of something. perhaps everyone ELSE ripped off Milton, but i do not think quite strongly enough that Nickel Creek put the allusion there.
but i could be wrong, who knows? oh yeah and welcome to the board. :)

[Uncouth Swain]

Doesn't have to be conscious or intentional to be an interesting allusion, since the Muse is a real thing, you know. It is true that a lot of phrases in the poem are in the air now, but this didn't seem to be an accident to me. Two of the songs on the album are about death (the goose doesn't count), and one of those deaths is a drowning. Also, some parts of When You Come Back Down smell to me like Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth...

I swear that I have never worn a tweed sport coat and that I very much enjoy this music in itself with or without literary allusions. :)

[chickzilla]

wow, i am a girl and i have worn a tweed sport coat, only once though i think. and sport glasses instead of my contacts while reading James Joyce over a mug of unsweetened hot tea as well. ;)
and i certainly agree that the air of the album runs every facet of emotion from silly to sorrowful and anything in between. and i agree that with three (goose, the keeper's lover and the lighthouse keeper) deaths on an album that are sung of specifically, that Pastures New is certainly a summation of the death and dying ritual... going somewhere new. and i am certain that the Miltonian feel of the song is accentuated in the fact that it is named for a phrase of his, and the sheer complexity of the piece itself. Chris, Sean and Sara being the exceptionally well read and literary minded people that they are, perhaps also read this poem, and think of their song in the same complex way.
(i love writing sometimes bombastic posts without proper capitalisation. its fun) :)

[Uncouth Swain]

Now that's what I'm talking about! :cool:

[chickzilla]

thank you thank you, i am currently re-reading Dubliners because of Eveline on the WSTFD album. in the deascription on the website it says that the song was written about the story. and i read Dubliners the first time so long ago, i hardly remember it.
most of my well read friends are stuck on Faulkner recently due to Oprah's recommendation... i thinks he ruins books when she says she has read them. :(
i am reading a lot of Albert Camus for a class this semester, 8 books in four months. and some Sartre. *sigh* we'll see how it works out. it might be an overload of existentialism.
wonder if Sean or Sara or Chris has ever had an overly esitential moment... for that matter, i wonder if they even exist when they are not right in front of my eyes? wow, its past my bedtime, i am getting a little bit well... loopy.

[BigTymer]

I read Lycidas a few weeks ago in my British Renaissance Literature class. I hit the last line and immediately thought of Pastures New from Nickel Creek's first album. I don't know if it's an allusion to Milton or not, but I definitely wouldn't put it past them--Chris did use Robert Burns's lyrics for Sweet Afton.

Don't you just love the way Milton softens everything down towards the end of Lycidas? It's such a gentle ending, great finishing sounds. But then again, Milton is known for his ability to end well.

I thought it was a cool find though.

[Uncouth Swain]

'zilla: I read the part about Eveline here: http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.345
It's a good story, or at least part of a good story! And I look forward to the day that Oprah recommends Flannery O' Connor!

BigTymer: I'm getting a strange image: the softening down effect in L is, I am sure, closely related to what musicians call a concluding tonic pedal after a cadence. It's common in Baroque music, esp. in Bach of course. Off the top of my head, one can be found in the first fugue in the Well Tempered Clavier, or in the prelude to the first English Suite. You'll understand when you hear it.

BTW, thanks for letting me nerd out for a while here. :rolleyes: