The pastoral genre in literature, art, or music shows an ideal version of a shepherd’s life, which includes moving animals across open land based on the seasons and the availability of water and grass. This genre usually appeals to people who live in cities. A pastoral is a work that belongs to this genre. A musical piece in this genre is often called a pastorale.
The genre is also called bucolic, a word from Greek that means "related to a cowherd." Arcadia, a place in ancient Greece, is traditionally used as the setting for pastoral works.
This genre began in ancient times, was not as common during the Middle Ages, and became popular again during the Renaissance. It remained important until at least the 18th century. After the Romanticism period, artists continued to focus on rural and natural themes, but these works usually did not feature farmworkers as main characters, which is a key feature of the pastoral genre.
Literature
Pastoral is a type of literature that shows complex life in a simple way. Paul Alpers says pastoral is a mode, not a genre, because it often shows a humble view of nature. Pastoral appears in many forms of writing, such as poetry and drama, and is especially common in the pastoral elegy.
Terry Gifford, a well-known literary expert, describes pastoral in three ways. First, it shows life in the countryside, especially the life of a shepherd, as explained by Leo Marx with the phrase "No shepherd, no pastoral." Second, it contrasts the countryside with the city. Third, it shows rural life in a way that is not always positive.
Hesiod's Works and Days describes a "golden age" when people lived peacefully with nature. This shows that ancient Greeks had ideas about an ideal pastoral life before the Alexandrian age. Ovid's Metamorphoses also describes different ages, but with more ages and less focus on gods. In this story, nature is the main punisher. Another example is Theocritus's Idylls 1, where a shepherd and a goatherd meet in the countryside.
Traditionally, pastoral refers to the lives of herdsmen in a romanticized and exaggerated way. In literature, the word "pastoral" describes rural life, often shown in an unrealistic way. Pastoral life is usually seen as closer to the golden age than other times. The setting is often a "locus amoenus," or a beautiful natural place, sometimes linked to the Garden of Eden. An example is Robert Henryson's Robene and Makyne, which shows mixed emotions. Christopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love uses urban items like "lined slippers" and "ivory tables" to attract love, not just pastoral simplicity.
Pastoral shepherds and maidens often have Greek names like Corydon or Philomela, showing the genre's origins. Pastoral poems are set in beautiful rural areas called "locus amoenus," especially Arcadia, a place linked to the god Pan. In these stories, shepherds and shepherdesses spend time in leisure, often chasing romantic interests. Virgil's Eclogues include a line showing a shepherd's love for a boy, showing homosexual themes.
After Hesiod, Theocritus wrote pastoral poetry in the Hellenistic period, using dialogues between herdsmen. His work blended simple language with complex poetic forms, influencing later writers. Virgil adapted pastoral into Latin with his Eclogues, showing differences between city and country life and using political messages. He set his poems in Arcadia, a place later used in many pastoral works.
Horace's Epodes includes a character named Alfius who dreams of leaving his busy city life for the countryside but cannot. Later Roman poets like Calpurnius Siculus and Nemesianus wrote pastoral poetry inspired by Virgil.
Italian poets revived pastoral from the 14th century, first in Latin and then in Italian. This style spread across Renaissance Europe. French poets like Marot and Ronsard also wrote pastoral works.
In English, Alexander Barclay wrote Eclogues in the early 1500s, influenced by Italian poets. Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender (1579) is a major work, with twelve poems for each month of the year. Spenser and his friends used pseudonyms in his work. Other poets like Michael Drayton and William Browne imitated Spenser. Some writers, like Sir Philip Sidney, explored "anti-pastoral" themes, showing nature as something to avoid. Sir Walter Raleigh's The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd (1600) contrasts the idealized shepherd in The Passionate Shepherd to His Love with a realistic view of nature and love.
Pastoral music
Theocritus's Idylls include songs with repeated verses and sad music. Like Homer, his shepherds often play the syrinx, or pan flute, which is considered a classic instrument of the countryside. Virgil's Eclogues were performed as sung performances in the 1st century, and there is evidence that pastoral songs were a recognized type of music in ancient times.
The pastoral genre had a big impact on the development of opera. After troubadours created music based on pastoral poetry in the pastourelle style, Italian poets and composers became more interested in pastoral themes. Musical settings of pastoral poetry became common in early polyphonic and later monodic madrigals. These styles led to the creation of the cantata and the serenata, where pastoral themes remained important. Many madrigals were based on Giovanni Battista Guarini's play Il pastor fido, with over 500 madrigals using text from this work. Tasso's Aminta was also popular. As opera evolved, dramatic pastoral stories became prominent, as seen in works like Jacopo Peri's Dafne and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. Pastoral opera remained popular throughout the 17th century, not only in Italy but also in France, England, and Spain. French composers created the pastorale héroïque, English composer Henry Lawes wrote music for Milton's Comus, and Spanish composers developed zarzuela. Italian and German composers also created pastoral music with specific styles linked to Christmas Eve.
The pastoral theme and its variations remained important in music during the 18th and 19th centuries. John Gay may have mocked the pastoral in The Beggar's Opera, but he also wrote a sincere libretto for Handel's Acis and Galatea. Rousseau's Le Devin du village and Metastasio's Il re pastore, which was set over 30 times, including by Mozart, reflected pastoral roots. Rameau was a leading composer of French pastoral opera. Beethoven wrote his famous Pastoral Symphony, using slower rhythms instead of his usual energetic style. He described the work as focusing on emotions rather than realistic descriptions. Pastoral themes also appeared in grand opera, such as in Meyerbeer's works, where composers often included a pastoral-themed "oasis" in the middle of their operas. Examples include the shepherd's "alte Weise" in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and the pastoral ballet in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades. In the 20th century, pastoral themes continued to appear in ballet, such as in Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, Nijinsky's use of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, and Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps and Les Noces.
The Pastorale is a type of Italian folk song still played in southern Italy, where the zampogna (a type of bagpipe) is still popular. These songs often sound like a slower version of a tarantella, as they share similar melodies. The pastorale can be played by a single zampogna player or accompanied by the piffero, a simple oboe-like instrument without keys, also called a ciaramella, pipita, or bifora.
Pastoral art
Ideal pastoral landscapes are found in Hellenistic and Roman wall paintings. Interest in pastoral scenes in art grew again during the Renaissance in Italy, partly because of descriptions in Jacopo Sannazaro's book Arcadia. The Pastoral Concert in the Louvre, believed to be painted by Giorgione or Titian, is one of the most famous paintings in this style. Later, French artists also painted pastoral scenes, including Claude, Poussin (for example, Et in Arcadia ego), and Watteau (Fêtes galantes). In Flemish painting, scenes of village festivals with people dancing were common. Thomas Cole created a series of paintings called The Course of Empire, and the second painting in this series shows a perfect pastoral setting.
- Giorgione or Titian, Pastoral Concert, c. 1509, Louvre.
- Nicolas Poussin, Arcadian Shepherds, 1627, Chatsworth House.
- Nicolas Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego, 1637–1638, Louvre.
- Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, The Arcadia or Pastoral State, 1834.
Critical approaches
Over the past 400 years, many writers have studied and explained the concept of pastoral. These writers include Friedrich Schiller, George Puttenham, William Empson, Frank Kermode, Raymond Williams, Renato Poggioli, Annabel Patterson, Paul Alpers, and Ken Hiltner. George Puttenham was one of the first to write about pastoral. He believed pastoral was not only about showing old rural life but also a way to discuss political ideas that other forms of writing had ignored. Puttenham wrote that pastoral has a purpose to "teach and guide moral behavior to improve how people act."
Friedrich Schiller connected pastoral to childhood and simple, innocent feelings. He said that in nature, we see "a picture of our childhood that is gone forever." William Empson described pastoral as having both positive and negative aspects, but he believed these parts worked together to create harmony. He called the process of making complex ideas simple "putting the complex into the simple." Empson also said that good art about working-class people often hides pastoral themes. He used examples from Soviet Russia's propaganda about workers to support this idea. He also noted that writers used a "double plot" to talk about controversial topics without facing problems.
Raymond Williams argued that pastoral is based on the idea that cities are busy, industrial places that have taken people away from the peaceful country life they once had. However, he said this is more like a "memory created by literature" of the past. When society looks back at these memories, it sees its own present as a decline from the simple life of the past. Williams also discussed how cities and countryside affected the economy and social classes in rural areas. As money became more important, people who moved to the countryside saw the value in untouched land. This new system led to social divisions in the countryside, including a hierarchy based on money and family names.
Renato Poggioli studied how death is shown in pastoral works. He grouped death in pastoral as "funeral elegy," with important themes like religion, friendship, and poetic calling. He admitted this grouping could be misunderstood. Poggioli also said pastoral is a nostalgic and childish way of seeing the world. In his work, he claimed shepherds were admired because they were "an ideal kind of leisure class."
Frank Kermode examined pastoral in the context of the English Renaissance. He said pastoral poetry comes from cities, not the countryside. He explained that pastoral is based on the contrast between city and country life. As London grew into a modern city, people felt nostalgic for the country life they had lost. Kermode also talked about how poets artificially recreate natural life for their own purposes. He said this imitation is a key part of literary history because it helps explain how literary traditions develop. He mentioned Virgil and Theocritus as early examples of pastoral, and later poets built on their work. As pastoral evolved, it became the form known as "Pastourelle," which first focused on the theme of love.
Annabel Patterson wrote about how different groups in the late 18th century interpreted pastoral in various ways. She said these different interpretations led to varied versions of Virgil's Eclogues. Patterson noted that Servius' Commentary is important for understanding how poets used indirect methods to criticize the church and government. She also discussed how Robert Frost influenced pastoral ideas. Frost's poem "Build Soil" criticized war and suggested pastoral should focus on personal growth, not social or political issues. William Wordsworth's poem "The Prelude," published in 1805, showed what a new golden age might look like.
Paul Alpers wrote a book titled What is Pastoral? in 1996. He said the main story in pastoral works is about shepherds' lives. He used William Empson's idea of making complex ideas simple to define pastoral as a form of allegory. Alpers described pastoral as a literary mode, not a genre, and said pastoral works show a humble relationship with nature. He also said pastoral conventions help writers talk about loss. He explained that pastoral speakers are simple herdsmen in stories. However, some writers, like Herrick, changed herdsmen into nymphs, maidens, and flowers, giving objects voices through personification. Alpers said pastoral lyrics and love poems can mix pastoral and non-pastoral elements. He noted that changing words like "lover" to "shepherd" can turn love poems into pastoral ones. He also mentioned Shakespeare as an example. Alpers added that pastoral is not only about praising the countryside but can also criticize it, as in Sidney's The Garden. Pastoral can also include urban, courtly, and social themes, as in L'Allegro.
Alpers said pastoral stories often contradict typical storytelling motives. He described pastoral narration as having two sides: heroic poetry and real-life situations. He also said pastoral novels have different meanings depending on the reader and differ from works by Theocritus and Virgil. He noted that pastoral novels can focus on country life, longing, or other themes.