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A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds
herd A herd is a social group of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic. The form of collective animal behavior associated with this is called '' herding''. These animals are known as gregarious animals. The term ''herd'' i ...
ing livestock around open areas of land according to
season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...
s and the changing availability of water and
pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...
. It lends its name to a
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other f ...
of literature, art, and music (
pastorale Pastorale refers to something of a pastoral nature in music, whether in form or in mood. In Baroque music, a pastorale is a movement of a melody in thirds over a drone bass, recalling the Christmas music of ''pifferari'', players of the traditio ...
) that depicts such life in an idealized manner, typically for urban audiences. A ''pastoral'' is a work of this
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other f ...
, also known as bucolic, from the Greek , from , meaning a
cowherd Cowherd may refer to: Worker * Cowboy, an American who herds cattle on horseback *Cowman (profession) in the UK, akin to ranch hand or dairy worker in North America * pastoral farming who works with cattle; also known as pastoralist * Stockman (Au ...
.


Literature


Pastoral literature in general

Pastoral is a
mode Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine * ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...
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 Leo Marx (November 15, 1919 – March 8, 2022) was an American historian, literary critic, and educator. He was Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his works in the fiel ...
with the phrase "No shepherd, no pastoral." The second type of the pastoral is literature that "describes the country with an implicit or explicit contrast to the urban". The third type of pastoral depicts the country life with derogative classifications.
Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
's ''
Works and Days ''Works and Days'' ( grc, Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, Érga kaì Hēmérai)The ''Works and Days'' is sometimes called by the Latin translation of the title, ''Opera et Dies''. Common abbreviations are ''WD'' and ''Op''. for ''Opera''. is a ...
'' presents a 'golden age' when people lived together in harmony with nature. This
Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...
shows that even before the Alexandrian age, ancient Greeks had sentiments of an ideal pastoral life that they had already lost. This is the first example of literature that has pastoral sentiments and may have begun the pastoral tradition. Ovid's ''
Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his '' magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...
'' is much like the ''Works and Days'' with the description of ages (golden, silver, bronze, iron, and human) but with more ages to discuss and less emphasis on the gods and their punishments. In this artificially constructed world, nature acts as the main punisher. Another example of this perfect relationship between man and nature is evident in the encounter of a shepherd and a goatherd who meet in the pastures in
Theocritus Theocritus (; grc-gre, Θεόκριτος, ''Theokritos''; born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry. Life Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from h ...
' poem ''Idylls 1''. Traditionally, pastoral refers to the lives of herdsmen in a romanticized, exaggerated, but representative way. In
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
, the adjective 'pastoral' refers to rural subjects and aspects of life in the countryside among
shepherd A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' ' herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, ...
s, cowherds and other farm workers that are often romanticized and depicted in a highly unrealistic manner. The pastoral life is usually characterized as being closer to the golden age than the rest of human life. The setting is a '' locus amoenus'', or a beautiful place in nature, sometimes connected with images of the
Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan- Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 ...
. An example of the use of the genre is the short poem by the 15th-century Scottish
makar A makar () is a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard, often thought of as a royal court poet. Since the 19th century, the term ''The Makars'' has been specifically used to refer to a number of poets of fifteenth and sixteenth ce ...
Robert Henryson ''
Robene and Makyne "Robene and Makyne" is a short poem by the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson. It is an early example of Scottish '' pastourelle'' written in a form of ballad stanza and is almost unique of its kind. Very simple in structure and plot, ...
'' which also contains the conflicted emotions often present in the genre. A more tranquil mood is set by
Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon t ...
's well known lines from his 1599 ''
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (1599), by Christopher Marlowe, is a pastoral poem from the English Renaissance (1485–1603). Marlowe composed the poem in iambic tetrameter (four feet of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed ...
'': "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"), such as Arcadia, a rural region of
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
, 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 Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Lei ...
. This makes them available for embodying perpetual
erotic Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, scu ...
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 Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
's second
eclogue An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics. Overview The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , wh ...
, ''Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin'' ("The shepherd Corydon burned with passion for pretty Alexis"), is entirely
homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...
.


Pastoral poetry

Pastoral literature continued after Hesiod with the
poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...
of the
Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
Greek
Theocritus Theocritus (; grc-gre, Θεόκριτος, ''Theokritos''; born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry. Life Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from h ...
, several of whose ''Idylls'' are set in the countryside (probably reflecting the landscape of the island of
Cos Cos, COS, CoS, coS or Cos. may refer to: Mathematics, science and technology * Carbonyl sulfide * Class of service (CoS or COS), a network header field defined by the IEEE 802.1p task group * Class of service (COS), a parameter in telephone syst ...
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 Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable ...
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 Moschus ( el, Μόσχος), ancient Greek bucolic poet and student of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace, was born at Syracuse and flourished about 150 BC. Aside from his poetry, he was known for his grammatical work, nothing ...
. The Roman poet
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
adapted pastoral into Latin with his highly influential ''
Eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...
''. 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 Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
'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 Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods ...
poets who wrote pastoral poetry, modeled principally upon Virgil's Eclogues, include
Calpurnius Siculus Titus Calpurnius Siculus was a Roman bucolic poet. Eleven eclogues have been handed down to us under his name, of which the last four, from metrical considerations and express manuscript testimony, are now generally attributed to Nemesianus, who li ...
and
Nemesianus Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus was a Roman poet thought to have been a native of Carthage and flourished about AD 283. He was a popular poet at the court of the Roman emperor Carus ( Historia Augusta, ''Carus'', 11). Works The works bel ...
and the author(s) of the
Einsiedeln Eclogues The ''Einsiedeln Eclogues'' are two Latin pastoral poems, written in hexameters. They were discovered in a tenth century manuscript from Einsiedeln Abbey (codex Einsidlensis 266(E) pp 206–7) and first published in 1869, by H. Hagen. The poems ...
. Italian poets revived the pastoral from the 14th century onwards, first in Latin (examples include works by
Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...
, 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 Pierre de Ronsard (; 11 September 1524 – 27 December 1585) was a French poet or, as his own generation in France called him, a " prince of poets". Early life Pierre de Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of ...
, once called the "prince of poets" in his day. The first pastorals in English were the ''
Eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...
'' (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,
fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular m ...
s 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 "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (1599), by Christopher Marlowe, is a pastoral poem from the English Renaissance (1485–1603). Marlowe composed the poem in iambic tetrameter (four feet of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed ...
'' 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 Shangri-La is a fictional place in Asia's Kunlun Mountains (昆仑山), Uses the spelling 'Kuen-Lun'. described in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon'' by English author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, g ...
. In the 17th century came the
Country house poem A country house poem is a poem in which the author compliments a wealthy patron or a friend through a description of his country house. Such poems were popular in early 17th-century England. The genre may be seen as a sub-set of the topographical ...
. 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 Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
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. 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 Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contrib ...
', ''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 The pastoral elegy is a poem about both death and idyllic rural life. Often, the pastoral elegy features shepherds. The genre is actually a subgroup of pastoral poetry, as the elegy takes the pastoral elements and relates them to expressing grief ...
is a subgenre that uses pastoral elements to lament a death or loss. The most famous pastoral elegy in English is
John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...
's "
Lycidas "Lycidas" () is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, ''Justa Edouardo King Naufrago'', dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a friend of Milton at Cambridge who dro ...
" (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 Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his '' Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,'' published in 1751. G ...
's, "Elegy In a Country Churchyard" (1750). 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 Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
's ''Pastorals'' (1709). In this work Pope imitates
Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for '' The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen o ...
's ''Shepheardes Calendar'', while utilizing classical names and allusions aligning him with
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
. 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 Ambrose Philips (167418 June 1749) was an English poet and politician. He feuded with other poets of his time, resulting in Henry Carey bestowing the nickname " Namby-Pamby" upon him, which came to mean affected, weak, and maudlin speech or verse ...
. 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 John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for '' The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly P ...
, 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 George Crabbe ( ; 24 December 1754 – 3 February 1832) was an English poet, surgeon and clergyman. He is best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life and people. In the 177 ...
, who attempted to give a true picture of rural life in his poem ''The Village.'' 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 Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elisabeth or Elizabeth the Queen may refer to: Queens regnant * Elizabeth I (1533–1603; ), Queen of England and Ireland * Elizabeth II (1926–2022; ), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms * Queen ...
.
William Cowper William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and sce ...
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 Arthur Hugh Clough ( ; 1 January 181913 November 1861) was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale. He was the brother of suffragist Anne Clough and father of Blanche Athena Clough who both became ...
. 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 ''The Cotter's Saturday Night'' is a poem by Robert Burns that was first published in '' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'' in 1786. Composition Burns wrote "The Cotter's Saturday Night" at his Mossgiel farm, near Mauchline, during the wi ...
''. 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 Theocritus (; grc-gre, Θεόκριτος, ''Theokritos''; born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry. Life Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from h ...
. Another subgenre is the Edenic Pastoral, which alludes to the perfect relationship between God, man, and nature in the
Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan- Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 ...
. It typically includes biblical symbols and imagery. In 1645 John Milton wrote ''
L'Allegro ''L'Allegro'' is a pastoral poem by John Milton published in his 1645 ''Poems''. ''L'Allegro'' (which means "the happy man" in Italian) has from its first appearance been paired with the contrasting pastoral poem, ''Il Penseroso'' ("the mela ...
'', 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 ''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 16 ...
'', 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 Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehoo ...
, 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 Bernardim Ribeiro (1482October 1552) was a Renaissance Portuguese poet and writer. Early life Ribeiro was a native of Torrão in the Alentejo. His father, Damião Ribeiro, was implicated in a conspiracy against King John II in 1484, and had to f ...
"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 ''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 play The satyr play is a form of Attic theatre performance related to both comedy and tragedy. It preserves theatrical elements of dialogue, actors speaking verse, a chorus that dances and sings, masks and costumes. Its relationship to tragedy is stro ...
s.
Poliziano Agnolo (Angelo) Ambrogini (14 July 1454 – 24 September 1494), commonly known by his nickname Poliziano (; anglicized as Politian; Latin: '' Politianus''), was an Italian classical scholar and poet of the Florentine Renaissance. His scho ...
'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 Isabella Andreini (born Isabella Canali, 156210 June 1604), also known as Isabella Da Padova, was an Italian actress and writer. Andreini was a member of the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi, a touring theatre company that performed in Italy and Fr ...
'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 Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
's ''The Sad Shepherd'' and Sidney's '' The Lady of May'' are later examples. Some of
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's plays contain pastoral elements, most notably ''
As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 h ...
'' (whose plot was derived from Thomas Lodge's pastoral romance ''Rosalynde'') and ''
The Winter's Tale ''The Winter's Tale'' is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some cri ...
'', 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 Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands ( pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The anim ...
. 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 music

Theocritus's ''Idylls'' include strophic songs and musical laments, and, as in
Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
, his shepherds often play the
syrinx In classical Greek mythology, Syrinx ( Greek Σύριγξ) was a nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Pursued by the amorous god Pan, she ran to a river's edge and asked for assistance from the river nymphs. In answer, ...
, or Pan flute, considered a quintessentially pastoral instrument. Virgil's ''Eclogues'' were performed as sung mime in the 1st century, and there is evidence of the pastoral song as a legitimate genre of classical times. The pastoral genre was a significant influence in the development of
opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
. After settings of pastoral poetry in the
pastourelle The pastourelle (; also ''pastorelle'', ''pastorella'', or ''pastorita'' is a typically Old French lyric form concerning the romance of a shepherdess. In most of the early pastourelles, the poet knight meets a shepherdess who bests him in a bat ...
genre by the
troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a '' trobair ...
s, Italian poets and composers became increasingly drawn to the pastoral. Musical settings of pastoral poetry became increasingly common in first polyphonic and then monodic
madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number ...
s: these later led to the
cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning o ...
and the serenata, in which pastoral themes remained on a consistent basis. Partial musical settings of Giovanni Battista Guarini's ''Il pastor fido'' were highly popular: the texts of over 500 madrigals were taken from this one play alone. Tasso's ''Aminta'' was also a favourite. As
opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
developed, the dramatic pastoral came to the fore with such works as
Jacopo Peri Jacopo Peri (20 August 156112 August 1633), known under the pseudonym Il Zazzerino, was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote th ...
's '' Dafne'' and, most notably, Monteverdi's '' L'Orfeo''. Pastoral opera remained popular throughout the 17th-century, and not just in Italy, as is shown by the French genre of '' pastorale héroïque'', Englishman
Henry Lawes Henry Lawes (1596 – 1662) was the leading English songwriter of the mid-17th century. He was elder brother of fellow composer William Lawes. Life Henry Lawes (baptised 5 January 1596 – 21 October 1662),Ian Spink, "Lawes, Henry," ''Grove Musi ...
's music for Milton's '' Comus'' (not to mention John Blow's '' Venus and Adonis''), and Spanish zarzuela. At the same time, Italian and German composers developed a genre of vocal and instrumental pastorals, distinguished by certain stylistic features, associated with Christmas Eve. The pastoral, and parodies of the pastoral, continued to play an important role in musical history throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
John Gay John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for '' The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly P ...
may have satirized the pastoral in '' The Beggar's Opera'', but also wrote an entirely sincere libretto for
Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
's '' Acis and Galatea''. Rousseau's ''
Le Devin du village ''Le devin du village'' ("The Village Soothsayer") is a one-act French opera (intermède) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who also wrote the libretto. It was the first work in the repertory of the Académie Royale de Musique for which the text and musi ...
'' draws on pastoral roots, and Metastasio's libretto '' Il re pastore'' was set over 30 times, most famously by
Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
. Rameau was an outstanding exponent of French pastoral opera.
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
also wrote his famous Pastoral Symphony, avoiding his usual musical dynamism in favour of relatively slow rhythms. More concerned with psychology than description, he labelled the work "more the expression of feeling than ealisticpainting". The pastoral also appeared as a feature of grand opera, most particularly in Meyerbeer's operas: often composers would develop a pastoral-themed "oasis", usually in the centre of their work. Notable examples include the shepherd's "alte Weise" from
Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's '' Tristan und Isolde'', or the pastoral ballet occupying the middle of Tchaikovsky's '' The Queen of Spades''. The 20th-century continued to bring new pastoral interpretations, particularly in ballet, such as Ravel's ''Daphis and Chloe'', Nijinsky's use of Debussy's '' Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'', and Stravinsky's '' Le sacre du printemps'' and ''Les Noces''. The
Pastorale Pastorale refers to something of a pastoral nature in music, whether in form or in mood. In Baroque music, a pastorale is a movement of a melody in thirds over a drone bass, recalling the Christmas music of ''pifferari'', players of the traditio ...
is a form of Italian folk song still played in the regions of Southern Italy where the zampogna continues to thrive. They generally sound like a slowed down version of a tarantella, as they encompass many of the same melodic phrases. The pastorale on the zampogna can be played by a solo zampogna player, or in some regions can be accompanied by the piffero (also commonly called a ciaramella, 'pipita', or bifora), which is a primitive key-less double reed
oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. ...
type instrument.


Pastoral art

Idealised pastoral landscapes appear in Hellenistic and Roman wall paintings. Interest in the pastoral as a subject for art revived in Renaissance Italy, partly inspired by the descriptions of pictures Jacopo Sannazaro included in his ''Arcadia''. The ''
Pastoral Concert The ''Pastoral Concert'' or ''Le Concert Champêtre'' is an oil painting of c. 1509 attributed to the Italian Renaissance master Titian. It was previously attributed to his fellow Venetian and contemporary Giorgione. It is now in the Musée du Lo ...
'' in the
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...
attributed to Giorgione or
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
is perhaps the most famous painting in this style. Later, French artists were also attracted to the pastoral, notably Claude, Poussin (e.g. Et in Arcadia ego) and Watteau (in his ''Fêtes galantes''). The
Fête champêtre A fête champêtre was a form of entertainment in the 18th century, taking the form of a garden party. This form of entertainment was particularly practised by the French court, where in the Gardens of Versailles and elsewhere areas of the p ...
, with scenes of country people dancing was a popular subject in Flemish painting. Thomas Cole has a series of paintings titled '' The Course of Empire'', and the second of these paintings (shown on the right) depicts the perfect pastoral setting. Image:Fiesta campestre.jpg, Giorgione or
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
, ''
Pastoral Concert The ''Pastoral Concert'' or ''Le Concert Champêtre'' is an oil painting of c. 1509 attributed to the Italian Renaissance master Titian. It was previously attributed to his fellow Venetian and contemporary Giorgione. It is now in the Musée du Lo ...
'', c. 1509,
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...
. Image:Poussin1627.jpg,
Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...
''Arcadian Shepherds'', 1627,
Chatsworth House Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the Cavendish family since 1549. It stands on the east bank of the ...
File:Nicolas Poussin - Et in Arcadia ego (deuxième version).jpg,
Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...
'' Et in Arcadia ego'', 1637-1638,
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...
Image:Cole Thomas The Course of Empire The Arcadian or Pastoral State 1836.jpg, Thomas Cole, '' The Course of Empire'', ''The Arcadia'' or ''Pastoral State'', 1834


Religious usage


In Christianity

Pastoral imagery and symbolism feature heavily in Christianity and the Bible.
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
calls himself the "Good Shepherd" in , contrasting his role as the
Lamb of God Lamb of God ( el, Ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, Amnòs toû Theoû; la, Agnus Dei, ) is a title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God wh ...
. Many Christian denominations use the title "
Pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...
", a word rooted in the Biblical metaphor of shepherding. (''Pastor'' in Latin means "shepherd"). The
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
word (''roʿeh''), which is used as a noun as in "shepherd", and as a verb as in "to tend a flock." It occurs 173 times in 144 Old Testament verses and relates to the literal feeding of sheep, as in
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
29:7. In
Jeremiah Jeremiah, Modern:   , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning "Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewis ...
23:4, both meanings are used (''ro'im'' is used for "shepherds" and ''yir'um'' for "shall feed them"), "And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD." (
KJV The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...
). A pastoral economic system had great cultural significance for the Jewish people from earliest recorded times:
Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...
herded flocks. Throughout the biblical accounts of the
Children of Israel The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
, a pastoral lifestyle in the harsh hinterland of the Levant related to the ideal of a society obedient to
Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he po ...
, in contrast to the corruption and
idolatry Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the ...
encountered in the "fleshpots of Egypt" (Exodus 16:3), in the lush
Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ite lowlands "flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:8), or in
Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
, the "great city" of Israelite exile.
David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
, a righteous shepherd-boy associated with the arid hill-country, contrasts with
Goliath Goliath ( ) ''Goləyāṯ''; ar, جُليات ''Ǧulyāt'' (Christian term) or (Quranic term). is a character in the Book of Samuel, described as a Philistine giant defeated by the young David in single combat. The story signified King Sau ...
and
Saul Saul (; he, , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered tri ...
, representatives of luxurious urban élites. Thus New Testament imagery of shepherds and their sheep builds on established cultural and economic distinctions familiar, directly or indirectly, to the Jewish world at the time of the origins of Christianity in the first century CE. A pastoral letter, often called simply a pastoral, is an open letter addressed by a bishop to the clergy or laity of a diocese or to both, containing general admonition, instruction or consolation, or directions for behavior in particular circumstances. In most episcopal church bodies, clerics are often required to read out pastoral letters of superior bishops to their congregations. The pastoral epistles are a group of three books of the canonical
New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
: the First Epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy) the
Second Epistle to Timothy The Second Epistle to Timothy is one of the three pastoral epistles traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle.. Addressed to Timothy, a fellow missionary, it is traditionally considered to be the last epistle he wrote before his death. Alth ...
(2 Timothy), and the
Epistle to Titus The Epistle to Titus is one of the three pastoral epistles (along with 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy) in the New Testament, historically attributed to Paul the Apostle. It is addressed to Saint Titus and describes the requirements and duties of elders ...
. They are presented as letters from
Paul the Apostle Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
to Timothy and to Titus. They are generally discussed as a group (sometimes with the addition of the Epistle to Philemon) and are given the title "pastoral" because they are addressed to individuals with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss issues of Christian living, doctrine and
leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets v ...
.


Pastoral theory

In the past four hundred years, a range of writers have worked on theorizing the nature of pastoral. These include
Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendsh ...
,
George Puttenham George Puttenham (1529–1590) was an English writer and literary critic. He is generally considered to be the author of the influential handbook on poetry and rhetoric, ''The Arte of English Poesie'' (1589). Family and early life Puttenham wa ...
,
George Puttenham George Puttenham (1529–1590) was an English writer and literary critic. He is generally considered to be the author of the influential handbook on poetry and rhetoric, ''The Arte of English Poesie'' (1589). Family and early life Puttenham wa ...
, ''Arte of English Poesie'' (1589).
William Empson,
Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was ...
,
Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contrib ...
, Renato Poggioli, Annabel Patterson, Paul Alpers, and Ken Hiltner.
George Puttenham George Puttenham (1529–1590) was an English writer and literary critic. He is generally considered to be the author of the influential handbook on poetry and rhetoric, ''The Arte of English Poesie'' (1589). Family and early life Puttenham wa ...
was one of the first Pastoral theorists. He did not see the form as merely a recording of a prior rustic way of life but a guise for political discourse, which other forms had previously neglected. The Pastoral, he writes, has a didactic duty to “contain and enforme morall discipline for the amendment of mans behaviour”.
Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendsh ...
linked the Pastoral to childhood and a childlike simplicity. For Schiller, we perceive in nature an “image of our infancy irrevocably past”. Sir William Empson spoke of the ideal of Pastoral as being embedded in varying degrees of ambivalence, and yet, for all the apparent dichotomies, and contradicting elements found within it, he felt there was a unified harmony within it. He refers to the pastoral process as 'putting the complex into the simple.' Empson argues that "... good proletarian art is usually Covert Pastoral", and uses Soviet Russia's propaganda about the working class as evidence. Empson also emphasizes the importance of the double plot as a tool for writers to discuss a controversial topic without repercussions.
Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contrib ...
argues that the foundation of the pastoral lies in the idea that the city is a highly urban, industrialized center that has removed us from the peaceful life we once had in the countryside. However, he states that this is really a "myth functioning as a memory" that literature has created in its representations of the past. As a result, when society evolves and looks back to these representations, it considers its own present as the decline of the simple life of the past. He then discusses how the city's relationship with the country affected the economic and social aspects of the countryside. As the economy became a bigger part of society, many country newcomers quickly realized the potential and monetary value that lay in the untouched land. Furthermore, this new system encouraged a social stratification in the countryside. With the implementation of paper money came a hierarchy in the working system, as well as the "inheritance of titles and making of family names". Poggioli was concerned with how death reconciled itself with the pastoral, and thus came up with a loose categorization of death in the pastoral as 'funeral elegy', the most important tropes of which he cites as religion (embodied by Pan); friendship; allegory;and poetic and musical calling. He concedes though that such a categorization is open to much misinterpretation. As well, Poggioli focused on the idea that Pastoral was a nostalgic and childish way of seeing the world. In '' The Oaten Flue'', he claims that the shepherd was looked up to was because they were “an ideal kind of leisure class."
Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was ...
discusses the pastoral within the historical context of the English Renaissance. His first condition of pastoral poetry is that it is an urban product. Kermode establishes that the pastoral is derived as an opposition between two modes of living, in the country and in the city. London was becoming a modern metropolis before the eyes of its citizens. The result of this large-scale
urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...
left the people with a sense of nostalgia for their country way of living. His next argument focuses on the artificiality of poetry, drawing upon fellow theorist, Puttenham. Kermode elaborates on this and says, "the cultivated, in their artificial way, reflect upon and describe, for their own ends, the natural life". Kermode wants us to understand that the recreation or reproduction of the natural is in itself artificial. Kermode elaborates on this in terms of imitation, describing it as "one of the fundamental laws of literary history" because it "gives literary history a meaning in terms of itself, and provides the channels of literary tradition". Kermode goes on to explain about the works of Virgil and Theocritus as progenitors of the pastoral. Later poets would draw on these earlier forms of pastoral, elaborating on them to fit their own social context. As the pastoral was becoming more modern, it shifted into the form of Pastourelle. This is the first time that the pastoral really deals with the subject of love. Annabel Patterson emphasizes many important ideas in her work, Pastoral and Ideology. One of these is that the pastoral mode, especially in the later 18th century, was interpreted in vastly different ways by different groups of people. As a result, distinctive illustrations emerged from these groups which were all variations of the understanding of Virgil's Eclogues. Patterson explains that Servius' Commentary is essential to understanding the reception of Virgil's Eclogues. The commentary discusses how poets used analogy in their writings to indirectly express the corruption within the church and government to the public. When speaking of post-Romanticism, it is imperative to take into consideration the influence and effect of
Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American collo ...
on pastoral ideology. His poem, ''Build Soil'' is a critique of war and also a suggestion that pastoral, as a literary mode, should not place emphasis on social and political issues, but should rather, as Patterson says, "turn in upon itself, and replace reformist instincts with personal growth and regeneration".
William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...
was a highly respected poet in the 1800s and his poem, ''Prelude,'' published in 1805, was an excellent example of what a dream of a new golden age might materialize as or look like. Paul Alpers, in his 1996 book, ''What is Pastoral?'', describes the recurring plot of pastoral literature as the lives of shepherds. With William Empson's notion of placing the complex into the simple, Alpers thus critically defines pastoral as a means of allegory. Alpers also classifies pastoral as a mode of literature, as opposed to a genre, and he defines the attitude of pastoral works maintaining a humble relationship with nature. Alpers also defines pastoral convention as the act of bringing together, and authors use this to discuss loss. He says the speakers in pastoral works are simple herdsmen dramatized in pastoral encounters. However, authors like Herrick changed the herdsmen to nymphs, maidens, and flowers. Thus, achieving a mode of simplicity but also giving objects voice. This is done by personifying objects like flowers. Moreover, authors that do this in their works are giving importance to the unimportant. Alpers talks about pastoral lyrics and love poems in particular. He says "a lyric allows its speaker to slip in and out of pastoral guise and reveal directly the sophistication which prompted him to assume it in the first place″. In other words, he claims pastorals lyrics have both pastoral and not pastoral characteristics, perhaps like in the comparisons between urban and rural, but they always give importance to and enhance on the pastoral. Alpers talks about love poems and how they can be turned into pastoral poems simply by changing words like lover to shepherd. And he mentions Shakespeare as one of the authors who did this in his works. Furthermore, Alpers says the pastoral is not only about praise for the rural and the country side. For instance, Sidney dispraises the country life in ''The Garden''. Pastoral can also include the urban, the court, and the social like in ''L’Allegro''. Alpers says that pastoral narration contradicts “normal” narrative motives and that there is a double aspect of pastoral narration: heroic poetry and worldly realities with narrative motives and conventions. And in respect to pastoral novels, Alpers says pastoral novels have different definitions and examples depending on the reader. Also, the pastoral novel differs from Theocritus and Virgil's works. He says there are pastoral novels of the country life, of the longing for the simple, and with nature as the protagonist. And says the literary category of pastoral novels is realistic and post-realistic fiction with a rural theme or subject based on traditional pastoral. In ''What Else Is Pastoral?'', Ken Hiltner argues that Renaissance pastoral poetry is more often a form of nature writing than critics like Paul Alpers and Annabel Patterson give it credit for. He explains that even though there is a general lack of lavish description in Renaissance Pastoral, this is because they were beginning to use gestural strategies, and artists begin to develop an environmental consciousness as nature around them becomes endangered. Another argument presented in the book is that our current environmental crisis clearly has its roots in the Renaissance. To do this we are shown examples in Renaissance pastoral poetry that show a keen awareness of the urban sprawl of London contrasted to the countryside and historical records showing that many at the time were aware of the issue of urban growth and attempted to stop it.


See also

* Arcadia * ''
American Pastoral ''American Pastoral'' is a Philip Roth novel published in 1997 concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a successful Jewish American businessman and former high school star athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle cl ...
'' * Cottagecore *
Eclogue An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics. Overview The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , wh ...
*
Rustic modern Rustic Modern or rustic chic is a style of interior design that uses of historical period room installations or furniture within a more modern overall room design. Use of the term "Rustic Modern" in the 20th century Perhaps the first use of the te ...


References


Further reading

* * *John Dixon Hunt (ed),''The Pastoral Landscape'', 1992, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Studies in the History of Art 36,


External links

{{NIE Poster, year=1905, Pastoral Poetry *Two
Idylls
' by Theocritus (English) *The

' of Virgil *The complete works o

' by
Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for '' The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen o ...

''La Castità Conquistata: The Function of the Satyr in Pastoral Drama'', by Meredith Kennedy Ray (University of Chicago)'The Pastoral Concert' at the Louvre site

Pastoral Literature
BBC Radio 4 discussion with Helen Cooper, Laurence Lerner & Julie Sanders (''In Our Time'', July 6, 2006) Literary genres Visual arts genres Music genres Rural culture