Pastoral Tradition

             Named after the Latin word meaning shepherd, we can trace pastoral traditions as far back as the third century B. C. in Greece, when the Sicilian poet Theocritus included poetic sketches of rural life in his Idylls. Furthermore, we can assert that the Greek pastorals existed in three main forms. One such form, the dialogue, would usually take place between two shepherds, in the form of a singing match. Often, this would occur in the case of a shepherd trying to woo a shepherdess. Another form of Greek pastoral was the monologue, a gracious form of poetry, flattering towards the subject matter, and often stemming from a lovesick or forlorn shepherd. The third form is an elegy or lament, typically for a dead friend. Moreover, it was conventional for a poet to write about his friends and acquaintances in an artificial manner, depicting them as poetic shepherds moving through rural scenes. Indeed, these shepherds often spoke in chivalrous language, and wore clothing that would in reality be inapt for meadow conditions. Pastoral elegies may also include such elements as a procession of mourners, satirical digressions on a topical issue, flower symbolism, the use of a refrain, and rhetorical questions. The pastoral elegy was still practiced by 19th-century Romantic and Victorian poets, and is evident in such works as Shelley's Adonais and Arnold's Thyrsis.
             In England, according to scholar Harry Levin, the pastoral world was associated with the Myth of the Golden Age. Levin argues that "the sense of a lost world associated with one's own youth or with the unspoiled springtime of civilization, for the Englishman, had more associations with greenery than with gold. Hence it could be rediscovered, if not recaptured, by a trip to the country. A climate whose distinguishing feature was rain, rather than the Mediterranean sun, nurtured a differing set of esthetic norms." Moreover, as we will discuss later, notions of a golden age are also...

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Pastoral Tradition. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 09:27, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/18600.html