English Pastoral Verse

In its common form pastoral poetry describes an idyllic rural world that serves as a basis for comparison with a more distressed and degraded urban society. Sometimes this criticism of existing society is subtle, muted, and disguised. The pastoral form originated with the ancient Greeks (Virgil's Eclogues), was revived in Renaissance Italy (Petrarch and Mantuan), and subsequently made popular in England by Edmund Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar (1579). John Barrell and John Bull, in jointly creating this anthology (A Book of English Pastoral Verse), used a broad interpretation to include formal eclogues, poems, pastoral drama, agricultural poems (patterned after Virgil's Georgics), and even satirical poems critical of the pastoral style. The verse is arranged chronologically into eight sections, and each group is introduced by intriguing commentary on how pastoral poetry continued to evolve in response to changing social, political, and economic conditions in England. This historical commentary adds substantial value to this rather unique anthology. We read Spenser, Sidney, Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, Pope, Gray, Cowper, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Arnold, as well as lesser-known poets. The editors modernized the punctuation a bit, but they only changed archaic spellings where they judged it absolutely necessary. As explanatory notes were rare, I was initially uncomfortable, but I soon learned to rely on the sound and rhythm of the verse to carry me through any difficult lines. In retrospect I am sure that I more quickly gained an appreciation for pastoral verse than if I had been halting frequently to read footnotes. I highly recommend this work, especially to anyone interested in exploring how changes in English poetry reflect changes in English society itself. My 1975 hardback edition (titled A Book of English Pastoral Verse) from Oxford University Press is not easy to find. However, this anthology is also available in a 1982 paperback titled Penquin Book of English Pastoral Verse (or, alternatively as English Pastoral Verse). There is an interesting article in the periodical Jacket 12, July 2000 in which David Kennedy writes that the pastoral is alive and well today among contemporary poets despite the contention by John Barrell and John Bull that the pastoral is an outdated verse form.