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The Pastoral

It’s not all about the sheep

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Classical Pastoral

• Est. by Theocritus in Greek (3rd century BCE)

• Popularized by Virgil in Latin: Ecologues

• Also: bucolic poetry, idyll, ecologue

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ConventionsTHE GOLDEN AGE

• Golden Age: a time of simplicity and perfection associated with the past– Simple– Innocent– Close to nature =

close to Nature

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IDEALIZED NATURAL SETTING

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Ideal vs the Real

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SHEPHERD’S LIFE FOR ME

• idealized labour• Carpe diem• Note the nakedness

—both a patriarchal sign and a figure for the “natural” openness and truthfulness of the country

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Satirical Pastoral: The “Contrivance” of The Court

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This is not the escapism you were looking for.

• Strong connection between the pastoral space and the space of the city or Court

• Replication or reproduction of Courtly models in the country– Displaced articulation of critique– Alternative perspective on the “centre”

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Sheep: Cash Crop

• Woolen industry = the engine of English economy

• Much animosity between peasantry and “big business” over– Enclosure– Manufacture– Suppression of traditional celebrations

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Shaggy Foreground Objects

• Idealization of the Pastoral subject (lusty shepherds, buxom milk-maids) and the type of labour they undertake– Effaces political tension– Effaces material conditions– Figures the pastoral

landscape as a “time out of time”

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Hindsight: Nostalgia