Let's have a thread for poetry in the pastoral tradition. Do you read it? Do you write it?I've been meaning to pick up a volume again. I've got the Idylls of Theocritus lying around. I'm slowly learning Latin, too, so it'd be nice to be able to finally read Virgil's Eclogues in the original.
I liked Virgil's Eclogues. I will try reading Theocritus soon.
>>25465225You might also check out The Shepheardes Calender by Spenser. I really enjoyed that one too.
>>25465102>Let's have a thread for poetry in the pastoral tradition.Wait until you see my cock fine ladyWait until thou seest mine cockI am going to plough thy fertile grounds aye ladyWait until thou seest mine cock
>>25465102Pastoral poetry achieved its finest form the very first time it was ever written down.If you haven’t read the Sumerian and Akkadian Dumuzid and Innana (Ishtar) cycles, you’re missing out on the best there is
>>25465102love pastoral. love the shepherd life.fragment of a pastoral pastiche i was working on a while back:>Just then, Phillillys, couched within a fold>Where thistles bloomed, and fleecy she-goats strolled,>Woke up. Drunk gods their summer sunlight shed;>Deep she had slept upon her natural bed;>The empty wineskin in her one hand clasped,>The other o'er her aching eyes she cast.>Why feels she so amiss beneath this vale?>Its tufts of thistle and its she-goats pale,>The morning sun which gods above provide,>Nor pleased her sight, nor eased the dread inside.>For she had dreamt (and goatherds trust such signs),>As she stepped slowly through those unknown pines,>Across her path a mangled goat-corpse lay;>A bloody head it raised, and seemed to say:>'Goatherd, attend. The primal powers bid>That I inform you what the Fates have hid.>See my red fur; my downy throat cut through>Will look like mercy when they're through with you.'
this is the all-time best pastoral imo: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48334/damon-the-mower
>>25465435Sheesh, that bespeaks trouble, which is not usually native to the pastoral genre.
>>25465621There's actually a lot of tragedy in Virgil and Theocritus, I think
>>25465621yeah, the big concept was it would unfold into a narrative of some kind of agrobusiness megacorp / ancient Pan cult / yoghurt conglomerate moving in and introducing capitalism to their idyllic pastoral life, way too ambitious lol, that's why i never finished it
>>25465634That's actually super cool, I'd love to read the whole thing.I've been writing a science fiction story told partly in verse, and the pastoral makes an appearance as a genre. I've personally tried to keep things idyllic. The pastoral to me represents an escape.To violate the pastoral's idyll is such an interesting idea, but I worry it risks desecrating the entire genre.
