What Is Pastoral?

Paul Alpers

Published by University of Chicago Press 1996

What Is Pastoral?

Paul Alpers

https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226015231

Overview
Contents

About this book

One of the enduring traditions of Western literary history, pastoral is often mischaracterized as a catchall for literature about rural themes and nature in general. In What Is Pastoral?, distinguished literary historian Paul Alpers argues that pastoral is based upon a fundamental fiction—that the lives of shepherds or other socially humble figures represent the lives of human beings in general.

Ranging from Virgil's Eclogues to Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs, from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Hardy and Frost, this work brings the story of the pastoral tradition, previously limited to classical and Renaissance literature, into the twentieth century. Pastoral reemerges in this account not as a vehicle of nostalgia for some Golden Age, nor of escape to idyllic landscapes, but as a mode bearing witness to the possibilities and problems of human community and shared experience in the real world.

A rich and engrossing book, What Is Pastoral? will soon take its place as the definitive study of pastoral literature.

"Alpers succeeds brilliantly. . . . [He] offers . . . a wealth of new insight into the origins, development, and flowering of the pastoral."—Ann-Maria Contarino, Renaissance Quarterly

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xii
Frequently Cited Works Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
PART ONE
Prologue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
1. Representative Anecdotes and Ideas of Pastoral Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
2. Mode and Genre Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
3. Pastoral Convention Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
PART TWO
4. Representative Shepherds Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
5. Pastoral Speakers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
6. Pastoral Lyrics and Their Speakers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
7. Modern Pastoral Lyricism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	260
8. Pastoral Narration Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323
9. Pastoral Novels Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	375
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	421

Language: English
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 444
Keywords: pastoral; shepherds; herding; herd; livestock; idealization; idealized manner; representation; western literature; literary; rural themes; ruralism; nature; natural world; fiction; humble; humanity; human beings; nostalgia; criticism; lyricism; narration; speakers; genre; virgil; sarah orne jewett; william shakespeare; cervantes; robert frost; simplicity; country life

eBook

Published: March 15, 2011
ISBN: 9780226015231