Pastoral Poetry

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Pastoral Poetry

• By Alissa Hartenbaum

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What is it?

• Pastoral Poetry is a literary work dealing with
  shepherds or rural life, typically drawing a
  contrast between the innocence and serenity of a
  simple life and the misery and corruption of city
  (especially court life)
• The characters in pastoral poetry are often used
  as vehicles for the expression of the author's
  moral, social, or literary views
• An eclogue is a type of pastoral poetry which
  uses "singing matches" between two or more
  shepherds
• There are no set stanza limits, or any particular
  rhyme scheme for the pastoral poetry form

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Topics

• Love and seduction
• The value of poetry
• Death and mourning
• The corruption of the city or court vs. the
  "purity" of idealized country life
• Politics (generally treated satirically the
  "shepherds" critique society or easily
  identifiable political figures).

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History of Pastoral Poetry

• Pastoral poetry were largely established by the
  ancient Greek Theocritus.
• The tradition was passed from Greece to Rome,
  where Virgil used it in his Eclogues
• Pastoral dramas first appeared in the 15th and
  16th centuries. During the 16th and 17th
  centuries, pastoral romance novels appeared.
• Pastoral poets Sir Phillip Sidney, Robert
  Greene, Thomas Nash, Christopher Marlowe, Michael
  Drayton, Thomas, Dekker, John Donne, Sir Walter
  Raleigh, Robert Herrick, Andrew Narvell, Thomas
  Heywood, Thomas Campion, William Browne, William
  Drummond, Phineas Fletcher
• Pastoral playwrights William Shakespeare (As You
  Like It), John Lyly, George Peele, John Fletcher,
  Ben Johnson, John Day, and James Shirley.
• In later centuries, a reaction against the
  artificialities of the genre, combined with new
  attitudes to the natural man and the natural
  scene, resulted in a sometimes bitter injection
  of reality into the rustic scenes
• It was later taken up by Percy Shelley and Mathew
  Arnold.

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Christopher Marlowe

• Marlowe was a lyricist poet in the early
  Renaissance
• Born 1564 (same year as Shakespeare), and died
  1593 in a tavern fight
• Son of a shoemaker
• He was arrested for being an atheist
• This may have led to his belief in the
  corruptness of cities, a common theme in pastoral
  poetry
• Wrote many tragedies (plays, not poems)
• He was the first to write a tragedy in English,
  which soon inspired Shakespeare to do so as well
• Marlowe was the first to use blank verse, which
  Shakespeare also emulated
• He is rumored to possibly BE Shakespeare

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(No Transcript)
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The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

• Published in 1599, and written by Christopher
  Marlowe
• Expresses love by discussing rural life
• AABB rhyme scheme.
• The meter is iambic tetrameter, with eight
  syllables (four iambic feet) per line. (An iambic
  foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed
  by a stressed syllable.)
• Come LIVE..with ME..and BE..my LOVE,   And
  WE..will ALL..the PLEA..sures PROVE    That
  HILLS..and VALL..eys, DALE..and FIELD,   And
  ALL..the CRAG..gy MOUNT..ains YIELD. 

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Literary Terms

• Enjambment- continuation of a sentence or clause
  over a line-break
• And we will all the pleasures prove
• That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
• Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
• Hyperbole- exaggeration
• With buckles of the purest gold
• A thousand fragrant poises
• Static- the poem does not change in opinion or
  time

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The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

• Come live with me and be my love,
• And we will all the pleasures prove
• That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
• Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
• And we will sit upon rocks,
• Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
• By shallow rivers to whose falls
• Melodious birds sing madrigals.
• And I will make thee beds of roses
• And a thousand fragrant poises,
• A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
• Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle

• A gown made of the finest wool
• Which from our pretty lambs we pull
• Fair lined slippers for the cold,
• With buckles of the purest gold
• A belt of straw and ivy buds,
• With coral clasps and amber studs
• And if these pleasures may thee move,
• Come live with me, and be my love.
• The shepherd's swains shall dance and sing
• For thy delight each May morning
• If these delights thy mind may move,
• Then live with me and be my love.

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Breakdown

• Everything relates back to peaceful country life
• Starts with a direct initiation the speaker
  showed his purpose clearly, asking the woman he
  admired to be his lover.
• The following stanza showed a picture on what he
  would promise if she accepts to be his love.
• Some of these things are impossible for
  a poor shepherd, such as gold buckles.
  Do you think that this is important?
• The repeating sentences "come live with me and be
  my love, emphasize his eagerness.
• There is lots of imagery- visual, auditory,
  olfactory, and tactile
• There are no responsibilities in this imaginary
  life

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Questions

• Would a poem like this still apply today? In what
  ways?
• In what season does the poem take place? How can
  you tell?

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Websites Used

• http//mzsouljah.tripod.com/Pastoral/
• http//cla.calpoly.edu/dschwart/engl339/pastoral.
  html
• http//www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/35-pastoral-poet
  ry-type.htm
• http//www.enotes.com/literary-criticism/pastoral-
  literature-english-renaissance
• http//www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/Passion
  ateShepherd.html
• http//www.novelguide.com/a/discover/pfs_0000_0022
  _0/pfs_0000_0022_0_00020.html