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DOI 10.33234/SSR.14.6
Professor Clement Olujide Ajidahun
Adekunle Ajasin University Nigeria
This paper is dedicated to the sad memories of Pius Adesanmi, the quintessential scholar and poet who died on March 10, 2019 in an
Ethiopian Airline crash.
Prof. Pius Adesanmi posted this message on his Facebook page before his death: “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me-Psalm 139:9-10.
Abstract
This paper examines John Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ in line with the traditional conventions for analyzing pastoral elegies which include the invocation of the muses, the presence of nature in the mourning process, the charging of the guardian spirits by the mourners of negligence, the mourning procession, the questions of justice, elaborate passage and the final consolation. The paper further interrogates the African concept of death and the mourning of the dead. It further discusses the semiotic codes of death and mourning in Africa. It also critically examines the contemporaneity ‘Lycidas’ and its place in the contemporary society by juxtaposing the mourning of the death of King Edward and Prof. Pius Adebola Adesanmi. The paper, which is dedicated to the sad memory of late Prof. Pius Adesanmi, quarries the similarities and the coincidences between the death and the mourning of King Edward and Prof. Pius Adesanmi who were both young and dynamic poets and scholars but who died prematurely while travelling. The paper shows that their death symbolizes the universality and the inevitability of death.
Keywords: Lycidas, King Edward, Pius Adesanmi, Poetry, Criticism, Semiotics.