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  • Chapter 21 - Pastoral Poetry

  • from Part III - Literary Contexts
  • Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, University of Galway
  • Book:
    Oliver Goldsmith in Context
    Published online:
    28 November 2024
    Print publication:
    07 November 2024, pp 178-185

  • Summary

    Pastoral as Goldsmith’s model has been overlooked because literary historians still commonly assume that the last notable pastorals were published by Pope in 1709, and that pastoral poetry thereafter declined, or was turned into a mock form by Gay and Swift. In retrospect we see that the old genre system was breaking down, that some traditional genres (e.g., Georgic) were rising in importance and others declining, that new genres and subgenres and mixed forms were appearing. But that was not clear in 1750, when Goldsmith began his literary career and was looking about for models. This chapter surveys the models upon which Goldsmith drew and proposes that, in The Deserted Village, Goldsmith returns to Virgil and to the roots of English pastoral.