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Non-Dramatic Pastoral in Europe in the Eighteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Except incidentally, a treatment of pastoral does not form a considerable part of discussions upon eighteenth-century literature. No doubt this is because the eighteenth century, for all the artificiality and futility that the term connotes, still is for us the period of revolutions; we desire to see in it first of all the beginning of the new order of social ideas; it is only natural that these ideas should be sought in those writings that would appear to be the farthest removed from literary tradition. But it is hardly reasonable to expect by this method to form a correct idea of the time; not only what a priori represents reaction, but also that which continues traditions soon to be entirely abondoned, must be studied, if we would form the right estimate, not only of the period as a whole, but even of those very ideas posited as representative of the trend of the time.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1916
References
1 Aside from the special studies upon the principal writers to be mentioned here, the consideration of pastoral is to be found for the most part in general works upon the theatre in the various countries. Marsan and Greg, in special studies upon the pastoral drama in France and in England respectively, have dealt with that side of the subject very fully. Marsan, however, deals with the 16th and 17th centuries. Vernon Lee has written a pleasing account of the Roman Arcadia. The series known as the Storia dei Generi letterari italiani, published by Fr. Vallardi (Milan), contains a volume by Enrico Carrara on La Poesia pastorale.
2 John Pomfret's Pastoral Essay on the Death of Queen Mary, anno 1694.
3 In this detail Jovellanos follows Blair, or at least proposes this idea. In many respects Blair himself probably gleaned from Marmontel.
4 I refer to the Oriental or Persian Eclogues of William Collins (1742), and in particular to the fourth, Agib and Secander; or, the Fugitives. The second of the Oriental Eclogues (Serim, or the Artificial Famine) of John Scott of Amwell, is nearer the spirit of Crabbe. In both cases, the note is sounded but a moment, and it is after all true that Crabbe turned the tables against pastoral as a genre expressing at once an ideal and a reality.
5 Probably it would be going too far to ascribe a large place to the influence of Fontenelle in the popularity of the shepherd-masquerade among the Arcadians of the Roman Arcadia, incorporated two years after the appearance of his Essay; but the coincidence is interesting.
6 I desire to acknowledge indebtedness to Professor J. B. Fletcher, of Columbia University, for information about the English pastoral. He is not, however, responsible for the present interpretation.
7 The sixth Idyl of Juan Meléndez Valdés, easily accessible in Riva-deneyra's Biblioteca de Autores Españoles (vol. lxiii, p. 129), is a fair example. His romance entitled La Mañama (ib., p. 147) is somewhat more spontaneous. The fifth Eclogue of José Iglesias de la Casa (ib., vol. lxi, p. 452), of a somewhat later period, and especially Alberto Lista's 20th Lirica profana (ib., vol. lxvii, p. 295) of the end of the century, are typical of the same spirit. The imitation, if one will, in certain lines, of Latin poems, can not be denied; indeed, it may sometimes even seem to force and render unnatural certain of these lyrics. But underneath all that, it is too evident that in certain cases at least, as in the authors cited, the love of nature is very genuine indeed. If the Spanish authors sometimes imitated classical touches, they seem at any rate constantly to have gone on the belief that portrayal of nature was, for better or for worse, the criterion of pastoral.
8 Rime degli Arcadi, edited by Crescimbeni and others from 1716 to 1780.
9 Colardeau's versification appeared in 1779.
10 Note to the eighth Idyl, Pannychis, in Poésies d' André Chénier, edited by L. Becq de Fouquières (Paris, Charpentier, 1862), p. 99.