Let's get out of the city - today we're going to be exploring pastoral poetry. It's the poetry of the countryside, of rolling hills and shepherds, of utopia. It's one of the oldest genres of poetry and it's still in use right up to the present day. Here is an introduction to pastoral poetry's meaning, characteristics and examples. Pull on your walking boots!
Pastoral poetry meaning
Pastoral poetry is a genre of poetry that explores the connections between human life and nature. Pastoral poems usually romanticise the life of shepherds in rural environments and are presented as being free from the corruption and complexity of city life.
The word 'pastoral' comes from the Latin for the shepherd, which is why many pastoral poems feature shepherds and their lives.
Fig. 1 - An 1854 painting depicting pastoral life as described in pastoral fiction.
One of the earliest examples of pastoral poetry dates back to the Greek poet Hesiod (750-650 BCE), who wrote the poem 'Works and Days' (c. 700 BCE). 'Works and Days' explores human nature through the stories of Prometheus and Pandora, presenting the idea that Gods force humanity to work hard because of the selfish actions of these two mythical figures.
The idea that work is a punishment from the gods ties into the pastoral trope of an idealised, relaxing world- a world where nobody has to work and people can spend their days dancing and singing to each other.
Another early example is Theocritus' (c.300 BC - 260 BC) bucolics (Greek word for the pastoral poem). This collection contains many singing contests between shepherds, as well as wood nymphs and other denizens of the natural, mythological locus amoenus they live in.
'Locus amoenus' is Latin for 'pleasant place', and is a catch-all term for the settings described in pastoral poetry. A locus amoenus will always be a rural setting, usually replete with greenery and water.
Pastoral poetry characteristics
Despite being a broad genre with a few sub-genres, pastoral poetry is defined by a few particular traits.
- Natural settings, such as farms, forests, mountains, rivers and waterfalls.
- Shepherds and their flocks. The shepherds often carry Godlike connotations.
- Sometimes the poem's narratives consist of two or more shepherds singing to each other.
- Mythical creatures associated with nature, such as nymphs, fairies, dryads etc.
- Deeply idealistic and nostalgic for an unspecified past 'golden age' where things were simpler and people were happier.
- The idea that life in the countryside is preferable to life in the city. This stems from the belief that city life is corrupt, immoral and chaotic, while the countryside is simple, moral and orderly.
- In some cases pastoral poems are didactic (instructional), describing how to do various farming or livestock tasks.
Pastoral poetry examples
Being one of the oldest genres of poetry, pastoral poetry has multiple examples that we must understand in order to appreciate how the genre developed and changed over the centuries.
Eclogues (c. 38 BCE) by Virgil (70 BC- 19 BC)
A few hundred years after Theocritus came arguably the most important figure in pastoral poetry- Virgil. Inspired by Hesiod and Theocritus, Virgil wrote his famous collection Eclogues (c. 38 BCE) as a response that built on what his literary forefathers were doing. The Eclogues were of varying lengths, but all were written in dactylic hexameter.
Dactylic hexameter is a type of meter which determines the rhythm and flow of a poem. 'Dactylic' (when talking about Greek or Roman poetry) means the poem is written mainly in blocks of syllables called 'dactylic feet' with a stress pattern of 'long, short, short', ie. one long syllable followed by two short syllables. 'Hexameter' means that there are usually six feet in each line.
Fig. 2 - A portrait of Roman pastoral poet Virgil.
In addition to the standard pastoral themes such as singing contests and beautiful landscapes, Virgil also wrote about heterosexual and homosexual love, chronicled heated debates about mythology, and created the fictional setting of Arcadia.
Arcadia was an area of ancient Greece, traditionally known as the home of Pan, the god of the wilds and of livestock. Virgil took the idea of the place and immortalised it, making it synonymous with 'utopia'. Arcadia comes up in many pastoral poems right up to the modern day.
The Georgics (29 BCE) by Virgil
A few years after Virgil published Eclogues, he published another famous work, the Georgics. This collection consists of four books of didactic poetry, describing farming and rearing techniques.
Didactic poetry is a type of poetry that aims to instruct or educate the reader on moral, ethical, or educational subjects.
Each book covers a different aspect of rural work:
The first book is about ploughing the land - when to do it, how to do it, and things you need to be careful to avoid in the process.
Book two concerns plants and vines, and how to look after them.
Book three is about livestock, herds and animal husbandry. Virgil goes into great detail about what one should be looking for in the perfect animals.
Book four is about bees and beekeeping. Funnily enough, Virgil spends a lot of the fourth book talking about king bees rather than queen bees - no one is perfect!
But let clear springs and moss-green pools be near,And through the grass a streamlet hurrying run,Some palm-tree o'er the porch extend its shade,Or huge-grown oleaster, that in Spring,Their own sweet Spring-tide, when the new-made chiefsLead forth the young swarms"
- Virgil, Georgics 4 (ll.18-23)
Notice the way Virgil writes. He has beautiful, sensual descriptions of the 'clear springs and moss-green pools', but he's not just describing what he's seeing. See that 'let'? Virgil's telling the reader how to have the perfect conditions for bees to be happy and healthy. The Georgics are full of this sort of thing - at times they seem to diverge from any sort of informative path before dropping acute references or tidbits of wisdom. The Georgics are a bit like a farmer's almanac written by an extremely enthusiastic English teacher.
The Renaissance saw a revival of interest in the poetry of classical Greece and Rome, so of course, many writers took a great deal of influence from Virgil and his forerunners. One of the first and most famous examples of Virgil's profound influence is Dante Alighieri, who wrote two Eclogues (1319-1320) mimicking Virgil's own pastoral collection, before writing his gargantuan epic poem The Divine Comedy (1320), where Virgil himself guides Dante through Hell and beyond. Other Italian poets like Petrarch and Bocaccio were similarly influenced by Virgil and published various works in the pastoral genre.
An epic poem is typically much longer than an ordinary poem and concerns a hero or group of heroes who set out to achieve extraordinary feats. Their adventures typically see them meeting gods and may even be elevated to godlike status themselves.
Sonnet VII (1818) by John Keats (1795-1821)
Inspired by the Italian poets and especially The Divine Comedy (1320), many English poets after Spenser wrote pastoral poems, among them John Milton, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh and John Keats.
Here is Sonnet VII by John Keats, which presents an interesting development in the pastoral genre.
O solitude! if I must with thee dwell,Let it not be among the jumbled heapOf murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—Nature’s observatory—whence the dell,Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell"
- O Solitude, John Keats (1817)
This poem does away with certain aspects of the pastoral while keeping many of the others.
Despite no shepherds being mentioned, the reader can see many pastoral themes in this poem. The speaker in the poem is directly addressing the figure of 'solitude' in the same way that a pastoral shepherd might directly address nature. There are sensual descriptions of 'nature's observatory' and 'its flowery slopes'. The reader can see the tension between rural and urban life in the lines 'jumbled heap of murky buildings' - another popular trope of pastoral poetry.
Anti-pastoral poetry
Anti-pastoral poetry is poetry that seeks to challenge or subvert the pastoral form, either through form or content. Anti-pastoral poems, therefore, focus more on the grit and dirt of urban life and chronicle the lives and problems of city dwellers.
A great example of an anti-pastoral poet is T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), whose poems such as 'Prelude 2' frequently took place in densely populated cities lacking in colour. Eliot was known for his realistic portrayal of the world, as opposed to the idealistic ideas of pastoral poetry.
The morning comes to consciousnessOf faint stale smells of beerFrom the sawdust trampled streetsWith all the feet that pressTo early coffee stands.With all the other masqueradesThat time resumes,One thinks of all the handsThat are raising dingy shadesIn a thousand furnished rooms."
T. S. Eliot, Prelude 2 (1917)
While pastoral poets love to appeal to the senses for pleasure, Eliot uses 'faint stale smells' and 'dingy shades' to highlight the more dour, depressing side of life in his rapidly modernising world. The 'thousand furnished rooms' are an inversion of the endless rolling hills of Virgil's Eclogues and Spenser's Shepheardes Calender, 'furnished' highlighting the human intervention and the unnatural nature of the city.
In 'the other masquerades that time resumes', Eliot scorns the idea of the peaceful shepherd's life, and that people must work to survive because time will not stop for us to sing our songs.
Pastoral Poetry - Key takeaways
- The word 'pastoral' comes from the Latin for the shepherd, and many pastoral poems feature shepherds.
- Other characteristics of pastoral poetry include the beauty of nature, communion with animals and herds, idealism, and a preference for the rural over the urban.
- Pastoral poetry began in ancient Greece, but the ancient Roman poet Virgil was the most influential pastoral poet.
- Virgil wrote pastoral poetry that included his Georgics, which were instructions on how to run a farm.
- Anti-pastoral poetry is poetry that seeks to challenge or subvert the pastoral form, either through form or content.
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