Pastoral Poetry

Terminology

  • Bucolic: pastoral
  • Doric: rustic, usually with reference to the use of a rough dialect, such as that spoken in Classical times in the Peloponnese and in the Greek cities of Sicily and Southern Italy
  • Elegy: pastoral lament for the death of a fellow-shepherd; in later times the term comes to be applied to the nostalgic evocation of an Arcadian ideal in which the sense of the past-ness, the irrevocability of that ideal, predominates
    Georgic: a didactic version of the Pastoral, in which the intention is to idealize country life, but as a life of industry, not idleness, and to impart practical knowledge about agriculture
  • Idyll: a short descriptive sketch of an idealized country scene; the term comes to describe optimistic evocations of pastoral life, which suggests that the Atrcadian ideal is (almost) attainable
  • Pastoral drama: a drama which is set in the Pastoral world, including shepherds and their rustic life: Anonymous: Sir Clyomon and Clamydes, William Shakespeare: As You Like It, The Winter`s Tale, Ben Jonson: The Sad Shepherd, Samuel Daniel: The Queene`s Arcadia, John Fletcher: The Faithful Shepherdess, Joseph Rutter: The Shepherd`s Holy-Day