<i>Lycidas</i> and Catullus' <i>Poem 64</i>

Catullus’ Poem 64 is a major, and completely unnoted (to my knowledge), analogue for Lycidas. The essay primarily points out this thick unobserved intertextuality, which significantly shapes such well-known passages as those of “the blind Fury” and the “two-handed engine” (two of many others). The influence indeed appears to be mainly stylistic. Nevertheless, thematically, it does support arguments that Milton opposes his poem's Christian and classical elements (rather than mingling them), yet it enacts Milton's deeply held belief that classical poems, even those of the smooth and often erotic Latin elegists, could energize Christian art.