Pastoral is a
mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to place the complex life into a simple one. Paul Alpers distinguishes pastoral as a mode rather than a genre, and he bases this distinction on the recurring attitude of power; that is to say that pastoral literature holds a humble perspective toward nature. Thus, pastoral as a mode occurs in many types of literature (poetry, drama, etc.) as well as genres (most notably the pastoral elegy). Terry Gifford, a prominent literary theorist, defines pastoral in three ways in his critical book
Pastoral. The first way emphasizes the historical literary perspective of the pastoral in which authors recognize and discuss life in the country and in particular the life of a shepherd. This is summed up by
Leo Marx with the phrase "No shepherd, no pastoral." An example of the use of the genre is the short poem by the 15th-century
Scottish makar Robert Henryson Robene and Makyne which also contains the conflicted emotions often present in the genre. A more tranquil mood is set by
Christopher Marlowe's well known lines from his 1588
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love: "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" exhibits the concept of Gifford's second definition of 'pastoral'. The speaker of the poem, who is the titled shepherd, draws on the idealization of urban material pleasures to win over his love rather than resorting to the simplified pleasures of pastoral ideology. This can be seen in the listed items: "lined slippers", "purest gold", "silver dishes", and "ivory table" (lines 13, 15, 16, 21, 23). The speaker takes on a voyeuristic point of view with his love, and they are not directly interacting with the other true shepherds and nature. Pastoral shepherds and maidens usually have
Greek names like
Corydon or Philomela, reflecting the origin of the pastoral genre. Pastoral poems are set in beautiful rural landscapes, the literary term for which is "locus amoenus" (Latin for "beautiful place"), above all
Arcadia, a literary construct with only a tenuous relationship to the physical
Arcadia, a rural backwoods region of
Greece. Arcadia is the mythological home of the god
Pan, which was portrayed as a sort of
Eden by the poets. The tasks of their employment with sheep and other rustic chores is held in the fantasy to be almost wholly undemanding and is left in the background, leaving the shepherdesses and their swains in a state of almost perfect
leisure. This makes them available for embodying perpetual
erotic fantasies. The shepherds spend their time chasing pretty girls – or, at least in the Greek and Roman versions, pretty boys as well. The eroticism of
Virgil's second
eclogue,
Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin ("The shepherd Corydon burned with passion for pretty Alexis"), is entirely
homosexual.
Pastoral poetry Ancient Book III,
Shepherd with Flocks,
Virgil (
Vatican Library) Pastoral literature continued after Hesiod with the
poetry of the
Hellenistic Greek
Theocritus, several of whose
Idylls are set in the countryside (probably reflecting the landscape of the island of
Cos where the poet lived) and involve dialogues between herdsmen. Theocritus may have drawn on authentic folk traditions of Sicilian shepherds. He wrote in the
Doric dialect but the metre he chose was the
dactylic hexameter associated with the most prestigious form of Greek poetry,
epic. This blend of simplicity and sophistication would play a major part in later pastoral verse. Theocritus was imitated by the Greek poets
Bion and
Moschus. The Roman poet
Virgil adapted pastoral into Latin with his highly influential
Eclogues. Virgil introduces two very important uses of pastoral, the contrast between urban and rural lifestyles and political allegory most notably in Eclogues 1 and 4 respectively. In doing so, Virgil presents a more idealized portrayal of the lives of shepherds while still employing the traditional pastoral conventions of Theocritus. He was the first to set his poems in Arcadia, an idealized location to which much later pastoral literature will refer.
Horace's
Epodes, ii Country Joys has "the dreaming man" Alfius, who dreams of escaping his busy urban life for the peaceful country. But as "the dreaming man" indicates, this is just a dream for Alfius. He is too consumed in his career as a
usurer to leave it behind for the country. Later
Silver Latin poets who wrote pastoral poetry, modeled principally upon Virgil's Eclogues, include
Calpurnius Siculus and
Nemesianus and the author(s) of the
Einsiedeln Eclogues.
Modern Italian poets revived the pastoral from the 14th century onwards, first in Latin (examples include works by
Petrarch,
Pontano and
Mantuan) then in the Italian vernacular (
Sannazaro,
Boiardo). The fashion for pastoral spread throughout Renaissance Europe. Leading French pastoral poets include
Marot, a poet of the French court, and
Pierre de Ronsard, once called the "prince of poets" in his day. artist, illustrator and poet
William Blake's hand painted print illustrating his pastoral poem "
The Shepherd" depicts the pastoral scene of a shepherd watching his flock with a shepherd's crook. This image represents copy B, printed and painted in 1789, now in
Library of Congress. The first pastorals in English were the
Eclogues (c. 1515) of
Alexander Barclay, which were heavily influenced by Mantuan. A landmark in English pastoral poetry was
Spenser's
The Shepheardes Calender, first published in 1579. Spenser's work consists of twelve eclogues, one for each month of the year, and is written in dialect. It contains
elegies,
fables and a discussion of the role of poetry in contemporary England. Spenser and his friends appear under various pseudonyms (Spenser himself is "Colin Clout"). Spenser's example was imitated by such poets as
Michael Drayton (''Idea, The Shepherd's Garland
) and William Browne (Britannia's Pastorals''). During this period of England's history, many authors explored "anti-pastoral" themes. Two examples of this,
Sir Philip Sidney's "The Twenty-Third Psalm" and "The Nightingale", focus on the world in a very anti-pastoral view. In "The Twenty-Third Psalm", Nature is portrayed as something we need to be protected from, and in "The Nightingale", the woe of
Philomela is compared to the speaker's own pain. Sidney also wrote
Arcadia, which is filled with pastoral descriptions of the landscape. "
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" (1600) by
Sir Walter Raleigh also comments on the anti-pastoral as the nymph responds realistically to the idealizing shepherd of
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by embracing and explaining the true course of nature and its incompatibility with the love that the Shepherd yearns for with the nymph. Terry Gifford defined the anti-pastoral in his 2012 essay "Pastoral, Anti-Pastoral and Post-Pastoral as Reading Strategies" as an often explicit correction of pastoral, emphasizing "realism" over romance, highlighting problematic elements (showing tensions, disorder and inequalities), challenging literary constructs as false distortions and demythologizing mythical locations such as
Arcadia and
Shangri-La. (II),
Amarillis Crowning Mirtillo, a scene from
Il Pastor Fido, 1648 In the 17th century came the
Country house poem. Included in this genre is
Emilia Lanier's
The Description of Cooke-ham in 1611, in which a woman is described in terms of her relationship to her estate and how it mourns for her when she leaves it. In 1616,
Ben Jonson wrote
To Penshurst, a poem in which he addresses the estate owned by the Sidney family and tells of its beauty. The basis of the poem is a harmonious and joyous elation of the memories that Jonson had at the manor. It is beautifully written with iambic pentameter, a style that Jonson eloquently uses to describe the culture of Penshurst. It includes Pan and Bacchus as notable company of the manor. Pan, Greek god of the Pastoral world, half man and half goat, was connected with both hunting and shepherds;
Bacchus was the god of wine, intoxication and ritual madness. This reference to Pan and Bacchus in a pastoral view demonstrates how prestigious Penshurst was, to be worthy in the company with gods. "A Country Life", another 17th-century work by
Katherine Philips, was also a country house poem. Philips focuses on the joys of the countryside and looks upon the lifestyle that accompanies it as being "the first and happiest life, when man enjoyed himself." She writes about maintaining this lifestyle by living detached from material things, and by not over-concerning herself with the world around her.
Andrew Marvell's "
Upon Appleton House" was written when Marvell was working as a tutor for Lord Fairfax's daughter Mary, in 1651. The poem is very rich with metaphors that relate to religion, politics and history. Similar to Jonson's "To Penshurst", Marvell's poem is describing a pastoral estate. It moves through the house itself, its history, the gardens, the meadows and other grounds, the woods, the river, his Pupil Mary, and the future. Marvell used nature as a thread to weave together a poem centered around man. We once again see nature fully providing for man. Marvell also continuously compares nature to art and seems to point out that art can never accomplish on purpose what nature can achieve accidentally or spontaneously. , c. 1805. Two-handled cup with cover, so a
caudle cup type, with pastoral scene.
Robert Herrick's
The Hock-cart, or Harvest Home was also written in the 17th century. In this pastoral work, he paints the reader a colorful picture of the benefits reaped from hard work. This is an atypical interpretation of the pastoral, given that there is a celebration of labor involved as opposed to central figures living in leisure and nature just taking its course independently. This poem was mentioned in
Raymond Williams',
The Country and the City. This acknowledgment of Herrick's work is appropriate, as both Williams and Herrick accentuate the importance of labor in the pastoral lifestyle. The
pastoral elegy is a subgenre that uses pastoral elements to lament a death or loss. The most famous pastoral elegy in English is
John Milton's "
Lycidas" (1637), written on the death of Edward King, a fellow student at Cambridge University. Milton used the form both to explore his vocation as a writer and to attack what he saw as the abuses of the Church. Also included is
Thomas Gray's, "
Elegy In a Country Churchyard" (1750).
Alexander Pushkin frequently used the pastoral form in his poetry. Examples include
Reason and Love, written in the tradition of French pastoral poetry and
The Singer. The formal English pastoral continued to flourish during the 18th century, eventually dying out at the end. One notable example of an 18th-century work is
Alexander Pope's
Pastorals (1709). In this work Pope imitates
Edmund Spenser's
Shepheardes Calendar, while utilizing classical names and allusions aligning him with
Virgil. In 1717, Pope's
Discourse on Pastoral Poetry was published as a preface to
Pastorals. In this work Pope sets standards for pastoral literature and critiques many popular poets, one of whom is Spenser, along with his contemporary opponent
Ambrose Philips. During this time period
Ambrose Philips, who is often overlooked because of Pope, modeled his poetry after the native English form of Pastoral, employing it as a medium to express the true nature and longing of Man. He strove to write in this fashion to conform to what he thought was the original intent of Pastoral literature. As such, he centered his themes around the simplistic life of the Shepherd, and, personified the relationship that humans once had with nature.
John Gay, who came a little later was criticized for his poem's artificiality by
Doctor Johnson and attacked for their lack of realism by
George Crabbe, who attempted to give a true picture of rural life in his poem
The Village. , 1877, illustrating
The Faerie Queene In 1590, Edmund Spenser also composed the famous pastoral epic
The Faerie Queene, in which he employs the pastoral mode to accentuate the charm, lushness, and splendor of the poem's (super)natural world. Spenser alludes to the pastoral continuously throughout the work and also uses it to create allegory in his poem, with the characters as well as with the environment, both of which are meant to have symbolic meaning in the real world. It is of six 'books' only, though Spenser intended to write twelve. He wrote the poem primarily to honor
Queen Elizabeth.
William Cowper addressed the artificiality of the fast-paced city life in his poems
Retirement (1782) and
The Winter Nosegay (1782). Pastoral nevertheless survived as a mood rather than a genre, as can be seen from such works as
Matthew Arnold's
Thyrsis (1867), a lament on the death of his fellow poet
Arthur Hugh Clough.
Robert Burns can be read as a Pastoral poet for his nostalgic portrayals of rural Scotland and simple farm life in
To A Mouse and ''
The Cotter's Saturday Night. Burns explicitly addresses the Pastoral form in his Poem on Pastoral Poetry''. In this he champions his fellow Scot
Allan Ramsey as the best Pastoral poet since
Theocritus. Another subgenre is the Edenic Pastoral, which alludes to the perfect relationship between God, man, and nature in the
Garden of Eden. It typically includes biblical symbols and imagery. In 1645 John Milton wrote ''
L'Allegro, which translates as the happy person. It is a celebration of Mirth personified, who is the child of love and revelry. It was originally composed to be a companion poem to, Il Penseroso'', which celebrates a life of melancholy and solitude. Milton's, ''
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity'' (1629) blends Christian and pastoral imagery.
Pastoral epic Milton is perhaps best known for his epic
Paradise Lost, one of the few Pastoral epics ever written. A notable part of Paradise Lost is book IV where he chronicles Satan's trespass into paradise. Milton's iconic descriptions of the garden are shadowed by the fact that we see it from Satan's perspective and are thus led to commiserate with him. Milton elegantly works through a presentation of
Adam and Eve’s pastorally idyllic, eternally fertile living conditions and focuses upon their stewardship of the garden. He gives much focus to the fruit bearing trees and Adam and Eve's care of them, sculpting an image of pastoral harmony. However, Milton in turn continually comes back to
Satan, constructing him as a character the audience can easily identify with and perhaps even like. Milton creates Satan as character meant to destabilize the audience’s understanding of themselves and the world around them. Through this mode, Milton is able to create a working dialogue between the text and his audience about the ‘truths’ they hold for themselves.
Pastoral romances Italian writers invented a new genre, the pastoral romance, which mixed pastoral poems with a fictional narrative in prose. Although there was no classical precedent for the form, it drew some inspiration from ancient Greek novels set in the countryside, such as
Daphnis and Chloe. The most influential Italian example of the form was
Sannazzaro's
Arcadia (1504). The vogue for the pastoral romance spread throughout Europe producing such notable works as
Bernardim Ribeiro "Menina e Moça" (1554) in Portuguese,
Montemayor's
Diana (1559) in Spain,
Sir Philip Sidney's
Arcadia (1590) in England, and
Honoré d'Urfé's ''
L'Astrée'' (1607–27) in France.
Pastoral plays Pastoral drama also emerged in Renaissance Italy. Again, there was little Classical precedent, with the possible exception of Greek
satyr plays.
Poliziano's
Orfeo (1480) shows the beginnings of the new form, but it reached its zenith in the late 16th century with
Tasso's
Aminta (1573),
Isabella Andreini's
Mirtilla (1588), and
Guarini's
Il pastor fido (1590).
John Lyly's
Endimion (1579) brought the Italian-style pastoral play to England.
John Fletcher's
The Faithful Shepherdess,
Ben Jonson's
The Sad Shepherd and Sidney's
The Lady of May are later examples. Some of
Shakespeare's plays contain pastoral elements, most notably
As You Like It (whose plot was derived from
Thomas Lodge's pastoral romance
Rosalynde) and ''
The Winter's Tale'', of which Act 4 Scene 4 is a lengthy pastoral digression. The forest in
As You Like It can be seen as a place of pastoral idealization, where life is simpler and purer, and its inhabitants live more closely to each other, nature and God than their urban counterparts. However, Shakespeare plays with the bounds of pastoral idealization. Throughout the play, Shakespeare employs various characters to illustrate
pastoralism. His protagonists
Rosalind and
Orlando metaphorically depict the importance of the coexistence of realism and idealism, or urban and rural life. While Orlando is absorbed in the ideal, Rosalind serves as a mediator, bringing Orlando back down to reality and embracing the simplicity of pastoral love. She is the only character throughout the play who embraces and appreciates both the real and idealized life and manages to make the two ideas coexist. Therefore, Shakespeare explores city and country life as being appreciated through the coexistence of the two.
Pastoral science fiction (painting by Dmytro Ivashchenko).
Pastoral science fiction is a subgenre of
science fiction which uses bucolic,
rural settings, like other forms of pastoral literature. Since it is a subgenre of science fiction, authors may set stories either on
Earth or another habitable
planet or moon, sometimes including a
terraformed planet or moon. Unlike most genres of science fiction, pastoral science fiction works downplay the role of futuristic technologies. In the 1950s and 1960s,
Clifford Simak wrote stories about rural people who have contact with
extraterrestrial beings who hide their alien identity. Pastoral science fiction stories typically show a reverence for the land, its life-giving food harvests, the cycle of the seasons, and the role of the community. While fertile agrarian environments on Earth or Earth-like planets are common settings, some works may be set in ocean or desert planets or habitable moons. The rural dwellers, such as farmers and small-townspeople, are depicted sympathetically, albeit with the tendency to portray them as
conservative and suspicious of change. The simple, peaceful rural life is often contrasted with the negative aspects of noisy, dirty, fast-paced cities. Some works take a
Luddite tone, criticizing mechanization and
industrialization and showing the ills of
urbanization and over-reliance on advanced technologies.
Post-pastoral, urban pastoral and other variants In 1994, British literature professor
Terry Gifford proposed the concept of a "post-pastoral" subgenre. By appending the prefix "post-", Gifford does not intend this to refer to "after" but rather to the sense of "reaching beyond" the contraints of the pastoral genre, while continuing the core conceptual elements that have defined the pastoral tradition. Gifford states that the post-pastoral is "best used to describe works that successfully suggest a collapse of the human/nature divide whilst being aware of the problematics involved", noting that it is "more about connection than the disconnections essential to the pastoral". He gives examples of post-pastoral works, including
Cormac McCarthy's
The Road (2006),
Margaret Atwood's
The Year of the Flood (2009) and
Maggie Gee's
The Ice People (1999), and he points out that these works "raise questions of ethics, sustenance and sustainability that might exemplify [Leo]
Marx's vision of the pastoral needing to find new forms in the face of new conditions". Gifford lists further examples of pastoral variants, which he calls "prefix-pastoral[s]": "
postmodern pastoral,...hard pastoral, soft pastoral, Buell's revolutionary
lesbian feminist pastoral, black pastoral, ghetto pastoral, frontier pastoral, militarized pastoral, domestic pastoral and, most recently, a specifically 'Irish pastoral'". ==Pastoral music==