Pastorals; Alexander Pope (1709)
àPope's Pastorals were among his first published poems, appearing in the sixth part of Jacob Tonson's Poetical Miscellanies, on 2 May 1709. Pope originally wrote the Pastorals five years earlier, however, in 1704, when he was only sixteen, and passed them round amongst his friends in manuscript form. Pastoral was an appropriate kind of poetry for a budding young poet to cut his teeth on for not only was it a highly stylised convention in which he could demonstrate his developing skills, but in writing such poems he was emulating Virgil, whose Eclogues had similarly been his first published poems. Pope takes classical names for his shepherds (Alexis, Damon, Lycidas and Thyrsis all appear in Virgil's Eclogues), as well as traditional pastoral situations (a song-contest, a love-complaint, an elegy), and transports them to early eighteenth-century England, on the banks of the Thames at Windsor.
Pope argues in his Discourse on Pastoral Poetry, not published till the collected Works of 1717, but first written at the same time as his Pastorals, that a pastoral should be a “perfect image of that happy time”, which succeeded the creation of the world. It should give us “an esteem for the virtues of … the Golden Age”. Pope describes a pastoral as an “imitation of the action of a shepherd”, with the added rider that “we are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the employment.” The complete character of pastoral poetry according to Pope “consists in simplicity, brevity and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and the last delightful.” Some illusion, however, is necessary to ensure this delight, and “this consists in exposing the best side only of a shepherd's life and in concealing its miseries.” The aim is to espouse the notional ease and tranquillity of rural life rather than to give a realistic portrayal of it.
Pope especially praises Theocritus and Virgil among earlier writers, and Tasso and Spenser among the moderns. He praises Spenser's addition of a calendar to his eclogues, since it allowed him to expose to his readers “a view of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and aspects”, but he feels that Spenser's division into months is too scrupulous “because the year has not that variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it does every season.” Pope accordingly decided to base his Pastorals on the four seasons. He gave the poems further coherence by linking each season to a different time of day, so that Spring is set in the morning, Summer at midday, Autumn in the evening and Winter at night. The sequence can also be seen as a disillusioned allegory of the human cycle, moving from hopeful love in Spring, through hopeless love in Summer, and both absent and … encyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2885
àPastorals Pastorals: A pastoral is a poem about shepherds and shepherdesses, dealing with their life and praising them for the work they do. Often a more serious theme lies beneath the surface, however, and we must bear this in mind when reading Pope's Pastorals. Written in 1704, when he was sixteen, and published in 1709, they are in four parts: "Spring" or "Damon," "Summer" or "Alexis," "Autumn or "Hylas and Aegon," and "Winter" or "Daphne."
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à Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and feed. "Pastoral" also describes literature, art and music which depicts the life of shepherds, often in a highly idealised manner
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