Strand + Boland "The Pastoral"

Imagery:
- On soft, matted soil, blueberry bushes crawl.
- Each separate berry is described as a hot globe of tinctured sun.
- Crushed berries release a pang of tender flesh, slipped from its skin, preserving its blue heat down the throat.

Definition: The pastoral is a mode of poetry that seeks to imitate and celebrate the virtues of rural life.
Historical Context:
- Arcadia: A reference to a real place in Greece that developed a pastoral civilization around 400 B.C. ; it soon became a fictional ideal.
- Early works:
- Theocritus's Idylls (Greece).
- Virgil's Eclogues (Rome).
- Jacopo Sannazzaro (1504): Published L'Arcadia, which renewed the fashion and visibility of the pastoral, featuring a heartbroken shepherd.
- Philip Sidney (1590): Published The Old Arcadia, reinforcing the pastoral's significance in England, using it as a political commentary on power, grief, and yearning.

By the end of the sixteenth century and start of the seventeenth, pastoral poetry had become an intellectual driving force in poetic expression.
On the surface, pastoral poetry depicts ornamental views of rural life, but deeper questions concerning existence and nature intertwine, such as:
- Was man made for nature, or nature for man?
- Should the natural world enter poetry as a realistic object or a fictive projection?
- Will traditional religious themes, like the Garden of Eden and man's fall, overshadow the depiction of nature?

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pastoral convention persisted, characterized by shepherdesses and tidy rural constructs.
The pastoral served both as an escape and a conceptual framework.
Romantic Movement (Nineteenth Century):
- The pastoral tradition began to fracture due to the Industrial Revolution, which destroyed traditional rural habitats.
- Poets grappled with the relationship between the poet and society regarding the loss of the pastoral ideal, mourning the transformation of the countryside.
- Therefore, during this time, the pastoral mode evolved, showing resilience and renewing its themes in contemporary poetry.

By the twentieth century, the pastoral became a latent influence in nature poetry, often emerging as a contrast or commentary on urban life.
Modern poets like Charles Wright, Jane Kenyon, and Philip Larkin challenge the idyllic nature of the pastoral while referencing its themes, addressing urban intrusions and environmental concerns.
Themes in Contemporary Pastoral:
- The blending of pleasant memories of pastoral life with urban realities.
- Poets explore topics like urban hubris, ecological crises, and the impact of industrialization on natural landscapes.
- The pastoral convention remains in the tension between the idealized rural past and the stark realities of contemporary life.

Christopher Marlowe - "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love":
- Imagery of nature and rural pleasures, invoking a romanticized view of pastoral life.
- Pleasures of the countryside depicted: valleys, groves, feeding shepherds, musical birds, and floral gifts.
William Shakespeare - from Love's Labor's Lost:
- Contrasts the idyllic images of rural winter with domestic life.
Andrew Marvell - "The Garden":
- Meditation on the fleeting nature of life underscored by the tranquility of the garden.
- Themes of solitude and contentment in nature.
William Wordsworth - "To My Sister":
- Celebration of nature intertwined with personal relationships.
- Emphasizes joy and idleness in a natural setting.
John Keats - "Ode on a Grecian Urn":
- Explores beauty, nature, and the passage of time through the lens of pastoral imagery.
- The eternal nature of art contrasted with human experience.

Poets continue to engage with the subversive nature of the pastoral tradition, using it as a framework to interrogate modern existential questions and feelings of displacement.
Poems reflect on love, memory, loss, and the impact of industrial and urban settings on the pastoral ideal.