 |
 |
Pastoral certainly always involves a looking-back, even for Theocritus. That's the symbolic significance of the Alpheus-Arethusa motif. Perhaps a better word than nostalgia, though, as a technical term for what pastoral is in this respect basically about, is _tradition_: from trado, tradere, handing-over or handing-down. This is a major theoreme, perhaps the major theoreme, of philosophical hermeneutics. It goes with dialogue; or, in Alpers' terms, convening, convention. Also, tradition, unlike nostalgia, is a concept of progression and transformation, rather than regression and identification. It's about understanding that what is received, and what is to be repeated, is not a copy of an original, but a performance of a text. In this way, freedom and belonging turn out to be the same. Inability to see this point once placed a certain angry and self-consciously belated speaker in the adolescent and unpleasant posture of crushing those bloody emblematic berries that just kept reappearing, every year, yet once more and once more. JD Fleming On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:21:37 -0400 [log in to unmask] wrote: > Worth noting too that in the standard pastoral singing contests, there is a > "winner" but everyone gets a prize (goat, lamb, cheese, neat mazer) and the > shepherds seem to go away happy. Except Colin I guess, but that's not > because he lost a singing contest. > > Re. Tom's post, I think back on similar scenes, but I wonder if it is part > of the pastoral mode that one always is thinking back on them? Is it an > essential part of pastoral that the idyllic world is always somewhere else > (in the past, in the future, in another country), or can one experience > pastoral in real time (as it were)? This is a different spin on the > nostalgia question, I think. Does this explain Spenser's choice of a > Chaucerian idiom for The Shepheardes Calendar? Is this why pastoral seems > the natural mode for elegy? Is this why Frost is always so hard to think > of as a modernist (though he was discovered by Pound)? As for Milton, > Lycidas appears in the 1645 Poems, but dated 1637, and it looks back to > Cambridge days of the 1620s. (The temporal situation of the first > publication in 1638 is a little different, but it's still nostalgic.) > > Hannibal > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: THOMAS HERRON <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:06 pm > Subject: Re: poetry/pastoral > To: [log in to unmask] > > > > When I was younger the “pastoral” moments I actually lived through, > and hence are most attractive and memorable to me, involved heightened > and leisurely conversation in ideal natural surroundings with either > sex, friendly and enlightening with clouds floating overhead, or > sheltered in lilacs, or water drifting by, but not competitive at all. > Competition was saved for classrooms, CV’s and soccer fields... Of > course many college campuses interweave the classroom, playing field > and landscape as an ideal state of existence, but even so (I should > think) the pressures of the one are meant to be reflected on later > while reposing within the other, a transitory state of meditative > discovery heightened by youth and inexperience fast becoming > experience, depending on how heady the lilacs are. > > > Which is funny, in that (as a recent article in The New Yorker notes) > Milton spent much of his time teaching, and this pedagogical focus > comes out in his Eden, full of Adam’s and Raphael’s instructions, for > example, and in the didactic fervor of the ecclesiastical digression in > “Lycidas,” or that poem’s emphasis on the old Cambridge days and praise > of tutor Daemetas. By analogy any “meta” could be discourse on poetry > or experimentation with its forms so as to teach the reader about it. > Pastoral is leisurely schooling. Unfortunately and necessarily such > teaching implies authority and experience and constriction: perhaps > Milton and Edward King, or Diodati, had an equal relationship in the > fields, perhaps like Spenser and Bryskett; but how relaxed a companion > is Milton ever with his readers? --TH > > > > > A last thought: would young men be so attracted to pastoral if it > were not always cast as a kind of contest? > > > Penny. > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Spam > > Not spam > > Forget previous vote > > > > Hannibal Hamlin > Associate Professor of English > The Ohio State University > Book Review Editor and Associate Editor, Reformation > > Mailing Address (2007-2009): > > The Folger Shakespeare Library > 201 East Capitol Street SE > Washington, DC 20003 > > Permanent Address: > > Department of English > The Ohio State University > 421 Denney Hall, 164 W. 17th Avenue > Columbus, OH 43210-1340 James Dougal Fleming Department of English Simon Fraser University 778-782-4713 cell: 604-290-1637 Nicht deines, einer Welt.