pastoral

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pastoral literary work in which the shepherd's life is presented in a conventionalized manner. In this convention the purity and simplicity of shepherd life is contrasted with the corruption and artificiality of the court or the city. The pastoral is found in poetry, drama, and fiction, and many subjects, such as love, death, religion, and politics, have been presented in pastoral settings. In music, the pastorale is a piece imitating the simple music of shepherds. "He Shall Feed His Flock" from Handel's Messiah and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony are superb examples of the pastorale.

In Ancient Greece

The earliest pastoral poetry of which there is record was written by the Greek poet Theocritus in the 3d cent. BC It is in his idyls, which celebrate the beauty and simplicity of rustic life in Sicily, that the well-known pastoral characters Daphnis, Lycidas, Corydon, and Amaryllis are first encountered. Theocritus was followed by Bion and Moschus in the 2d cent. BC and by Vergil, whose Bucolics appeared in 37 BC In these polished and literary verses, which were later called eclogues, Vergil describes an imaginary Arcadia in which the pastoral scenes are allegorical: they celebrate the greatness of Rome, express thanks to the emperor, and prophesy a golden age. In the 3d cent. AD a Greek poet, probably Longus, wrote Daphnis and Chloë, a pastoral romance that also influenced later European literature.

During the Renaissance

The pastoral eclogue enjoyed a revival during the Renaissance. Vergil's Bucolics was translated in the 15th cent. in Italy, and pastoral eclogues were written by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The most elaborate pastoral romance was the Arcadia by Jacopo Sannazaro, written partly in prose and partly in verse. Poliziano's Orfeo (c.1471) is one of the earliest pastoral dramas. In France the pastourelle —a short poem in dialogue in which a minstrel courts a shepherdess—appeared as early as the 14th cent. and is exemplified in Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion, a play by Adam de La Halle.

In English literature the pastoral is a familiar feature of Renaissance poetry. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (1590) is an epic story in pastoral dress, and in The Shepheardes Calender (1579) Edmund Spenser used the pastoral as a vehicle for political and religious discussion. Many of the love lyrics of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Michael Drayton have a pastoral setting. Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is one of the most famous pastoral lyrics, and Milton's philosophical and deeply felt "Lycidas" is a great pastoral elegy. In drama well-known examples of the pastoral are Shakespeare's As You Like It, the shearers' feast in A Winter's Tale, and Milton's masque Comus.

During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Although poets, novelists, and dramatists of the 19th and 20th cent. have used pastoral settings to contrast simplicity and innocence with the artificiality of the city, they have seldom employed the pastoral conventions of Theocritus and Vergil. Outstanding exceptions are Shelley's Adonais and Matthew Arnold's Thyrsis, both splendid pastoral elegies. Poets such as Wordsworth and Robert Frost, because of their rural subject matter, have also been referred to as "pastoral" poets. In 1935 the English poet and critic William Empson published Some Versions of Pastoral, in which he defined the pastoral as the putting of the complex into the simple, treating the conventionalized bucolic setting as superficial; he then designated various literary works, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to the proletarian novel, as offshoots of the pastoral.

Bibliography

See the anthology ed. by T. P. Harrison (1939, repr. 1968); studies by H. E. Toliver (1971), and L. Lerner (1972); L. Metzger (1986); C. M. Schenck (1989).

pastoral, a form of escape literature concerned with country pleasures, which is found in poetry, drama, and prose fiction. Its earliest examples appear in the Idylls of Theocritus in which shepherds lead a sunlit, idealized existence of love and song. The eclogues of Virgil and Longus' romance Daphnis and Chloe blended the idealization with a more authentic picture of country life, and Virgil added an important new feature to the tradition in making his poems a vehicle for social comment. Neglected during the Middle Ages, the pastoral reappeared during the Renaissance when Petrarch and his imitators composed eclogues in Latin and in the vernaculars. It was with the prose romance (Sannazar, Cervantes, Sidney, D'Urfé), and the drama that pastoral attained its peak of popularity: Tasso's Aminto (1581), Guarini's Il Pastor Fido (1590, which served as a model for Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess), Lodge's Rosalynde (the chief source of As You Like It), Jonson's The Sad Shepherd, and Milton's Comus. In the 17th cent. the Theocritean vision gave place to a more realistic dream of enjoying a rural retreat. Poets like James Thomson extolled country pleasures and represented rural trades as enjoyable, until Crabbe showed that their descriptions were divorced from reality, and Wordsworth taught men to seek comfort in a Nature endowed with visionary power. The pastoral in its traditional form died with the rise of Romanticism.

pastoral a form of literature portraying an idealized version of country life, the earliest example of which is found in the Idylls of the Greek poet Theocritus (c.310–c.250 bc). The pastoral became popular during the Renaissance, and inspired particularly such prose romances as Sidney's Arcadia.

The word comes ultimately from Latin pastor ‘shepherd’; in late Middle English, pastoral denoted a book on the cure or care of souls, often with reference to the title of St Gregory the Great's Cura Pastoralis (‘Pastoral Care’), which had been translated into English by King Alfred.
Pastoral Epistles the books of the New Testament comprising the two letters of Paul to Timothy and the one to Titus, which deal chiefly with the duties of those charged with the care of souls.
pastoral letter an official letter from a bishop to all the clergy or members of his or her diocese, and a pastoral staff is a bishop's crozier.
pastoral theology is Christian theology, that considers religious truth in relation to spiritual needs.

pas·to·ral / ˈpastərəl; pasˈtôrəl/ • adj. 1. (esp. of land or a farm) used for or related to the keeping or grazing of sheep or cattle: scattered pastoral farms. ∎  associated with country life: the view was pastoral, with rolling fields and grazing sheep. ∎  (of a work of art) portraying or evoking country life, typically in a romanticized or idealized form. 2. (in the Christian Church) concerning or appropriate to the giving of spiritual guidance: pastoral and doctrinal issues clergy doing pastoral work. • n. a work of literature portraying an idealized version of country life: the story, though a pastoral, has an actual connection with the life of agricultural labor. DERIVATIVES: pas·to·ral·ism / ˈpastərəˌlizəm/ n. pas·to·ral·ly adv.

pas·tor / ˈpastər/ • n. a minister in charge of a Christian church or congregation. • v. [tr.] be pastor of (a church or a congregation): he pastored Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto | [intr.] he continued to study law while pastoring in Chicago. DERIVATIVES: pas·tor·ship / -ˌship/ n. ORIGIN: late Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French pastour, from Latin pastor ‘shepherd,’ from past- ‘fed, grazed,’ from the verb pascere.

pastoral In literature, work portraying rural life in an idealized manner, especially to contrast its supposed innocence with the corruption of the city or royal court. In classical times, Theocritus and Virgil wrote pastoral poems. The form was revived during the Renaissance by such poets as Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Spenser. Milton and Shelley were noted for their pastoral elegies, and poets such as Wordsworth and Frost have been referred to as pastoral poets because their work has a characteristically rural setting.

pastoral, pastorale.
1. Type of instr. or vocal comp., generally in 6/8 or 12/8, which suggests rustic or bucolic subject, often by imitation of shepherd's pipe. A 20th-cent. use of the term is Bliss's Pastoral, Lie Strewn the White Flocks.

2. Stage piece dealing with legendary or pastoral subject. Began as a play but in Fr. pastorals were set to mus. as an early form of opéra-ballet and were at height of popularity in 17th and 18th cents. Handel's Acis and Galatea is an example.

pastor †shepherd; shepherd of souls XIV. — AN. OF. pastour (mod. pasteur), acc. of pastre (mod. pâtre) :— L. pāstor, -ōr-, f. *pās-, extended form of *pā- in pāscere feed, graze; see -TOR.
So pastoral pert. to shepherds XV; pert. to a spiritual pastor XVI; sb. pastoral play or poem XVI. — L. pāstōrālis.

Pastor. The title given by Lutherans and some other Protestant bodies to their clergy, primarily those in charge of a church or congregation.

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