As the title suggested, I am in the poetry group, researching more on the sub genre of pastoral poetry. One of the main hurdles for me was the box I automatically put myself in with the genre. Seeing the word "pastoral" and then trying to find more focused searches on it, there was a great temptation to try to just look into country based resources or just look into possible religious resources.
The first and only pastoral poem I had read before this research was Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love".
I do feel it is a typical poem to be shown when thinking about the topic. But I read this in high school and its almost comical intensity with the romantic tendency as well as orgasmic description of pasture deterred me from further genre investigation. So it was a challenge to start unbiased research.
I started out going through the motions as simply looking into multiple definitions of pastoral in general. There was a focus on nature obviously. The initial consensus was that pastoral prose as well as poetry was just about an exaggerated love for nature with some huge life metaphor. With a search of "pastoral poetry" and "country", I was able to find different interpretations for pastoral poetry as well as the history of the sub genre. Perhaps the general research is bias but I found pastoral poetry to have started in the Euro area such as 17th century Ireland, England as political pieces etc. The research also lead in the reasons behind pastoral poetry being literally commentary on environments, not just ecology but cultural environments, political environments etc. The idea that these meanings could come from pastoral poetry was an interesting and surprising point of research for me.
Like you, I'm surprised that pastoral poetry has been written to comment on environments that are removed from nature--I always thought it was a very whimsical, exaggerated way of writing love poems. I'm wondering over what time was period pastoral poetry popular? Also, it seems like poems about nature have always been written, so what exactly differentiates a poem about nature from a pastoral poem?
ReplyDeleteIn addition to what Sanah's said, I'm curious about examples of pastoral poetry as political commentary on subjects like war and violence - how does pastoral poetry tie to eco-criticism or eco-feminism, for example? Also, what differentiates pastoral poetry from poetry that refers to nature imagery, or is there a difference?
ReplyDeleteI am able to resonate with your initial reaction towards pastoral poetry. I think it's interesting to see how pastoral poetry has almost expanded itself as a genre. I have not read many pastoral poems but I would be interested in reading some recent work that falls under this subgenre. I am wondering if recent poems hold some of the traditional elements of the genre. For example, you mentioned that pastoral poetry generally has some kind of metaphor hidden within or expresses an exaggerated love for nature. I wonder if any of these elements have remained with the subgenre.
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