Pastoral Poetry

1. Pastoral Poetry

2. Pastoral Poetry • "Pastoral" (Latin for "shepherd") refers to a literary work dealing with shepherds and rustic life. • It presents an idealized rather than realistic view of rustic life. • Classical (Greek and Latin) pastoral works date back to the 3rd century B.C • Shakespeare's contemporaries revived and imitated the topics and forms of classical pastoral poetry.

3. Drawing a contrast between the innocence and serenity of a simple life and the misery and corruption of city and especially court life. • Naturalness and innocence in contrast to the corruption and artificiality of city and court. • The characters in pastoral poetry are often used as vehicles for the expression of the author’s moral, social, or literary views.

4. Common topics of pastoral poetry include • love and seduction; • the value of poetry; • death and mourning; • the corruption of the city or court vs. the "purity" of idealized country life; • politics (generally treated satirically: the "shepherds" critique society or easily identifiable political figures).

5. A common pastoral poetic genre is the eclogue (a dialogue between two shepherds). • This conversation may be between a shepherd and the shepherdess he loves (generally his attempt to seduce her); • a "singing contest" to see which shepherd is the better poet (a third may act as judge); • lament a dead friend (a eulogy or elegy); • praise a notable individual. Laudatory poems, • songs of courtship and • complaints of a lovesick shepherd

6. An important subgroup of the pastoral eclogue or monologue is the elegy, which expresses the poet's grief at the loss of a friend or an important person. • Conventional features of pastoral elegies include: • the invocation of the Muse; • expression of the "shepherd"-poet's grief; • praise of the dead "shepherd"; • invective against death; • effects of the death upon nature (disruptions in climate etc. as expressions of a personified Nature's grief and sympathy); • and ultimately, the poet's acceptance of the inevitability of death and hope for immortality.

7. Renaissance poets expanded the pastoral mode to include the romance and drama. • Pastoral dramas first appeared in the 15th and 16th centuries and pastoral romance novels during the 16th and 17th centuries. • The pastoral drama or poem or romance depicted life far from the city in a countryside that was both idyllic and ideal. The shepherds and shepherdesses in a pastoral poem lived an almost perfect existence;

8. Pastoral poems first appeared in English in the early 1500s. • In pastoral narratives, city dwellers retreat to the countryside, which turns into a "fantasy paradise" where shepherds spend their time composing poems to their sweethearts.

9. Recognizable conventions include: • shepherds who are also poets, writing poems and playing upon pipes; • the good old shepherd, poor but eager to give hospitality to strangers and to those in need; • the "savage" man or men who lacked courtly upbringing but possessed an innate gentleness and gentility…; • the beautiful shepherdess; • the pastoral elegy, mourning the death of a shepherd or shepherdess who was often also a poet; • the pastoral debate, on topics like country versus city