PASTORAL, the name given to a certain class of modern literature derived ultimately from the "idyll" of the Greeks, the "eclogue" of the Latins and their 15th century imitator, J. B. Spagnuoli (Mantuanus) and the late Greek romances. It was a growth of humanism at the Renaissance, and its first home was Italy. Pastoral poetry, as it appeared in Tuscany in the 16th cen tury, was really an allegorical eclogue and the idyll could be expanded from a single scene into a drama. The first dramatic pastoral which is known to exist is the Favola di Orfeo of Politian, which was represented at Mantua in 1472. But this poem led the way rather to tragedy than to pastoral, and it is the 11 Sagrifizio of Agostino Beccari, which was played at the court of Ferrara in 1554, that is always quoted as the beginning of sentimental pas toral in European literature. Torquato Tasso followed Beccari after an interval of 20 years, and by the success of his Aminta, which was performed before the court of Ferrara in 1573, secured the popularity of dramatic pastoral. Guarini produced in 1590 his famous Pastor Fido, and Ongaro his fishermen's pastoral of Alceo in 1591. During the last quarter of the 16th century pastoral drama was really a power in Italy. Some of the best poetry of the age was written in this form, to be acted privately on the stages of the little court theatres, that were everywhere springing up. In a short time music was introduced, and rapidly predominated, until the little forms of tragedy, and pastoral altogether, were merged in opera.
Pastoral romance dates from the publication, in 1504, of the famous Arcadia of J. Sannazaro, a work which passed through 6o editions before the close of the 16th century, and left its mark upon every literature in Europe. This remarkable romance, the type of so many succeeding pastorals, is written in musical prose, into which are inserted passages of verse. The characters live an innocent voluptuous existence, with no hell or heaven in the background : the narrative, the adventures, the dialogue are equally exalted and unreal.
In Spain the influence of the Arcadia made itself rapidly felt through Jorge de Montemayor, whose Diana (1524) was founded on Sannazaro. Gaspar Gil Polo, after the death of Montemayor in 1561, completed his romance, and published in 1564 a Diana enamorada. Both these works are mentioned with respect, in their kind, by Cervantes. The author of Don Quixote himself pub lished an admirable pastoral romance, Galatea, in 1584. Lope de
Vega made a pastoral of the Nativity introducing much of the Old Testament in narrative episodes related by the characters.
The typical French pastoral, the Astree of Honore d'Urfe ( i6io), has almost more connection with the knightly romances which Cervantes laughed at than with the pastorals which he praised. The famous Astree was the result of the study of Tasso's Aminta on the one hand and Montemayor's Diana on the other, with a strong flavouring of the romantic spirit of the Amadis. To remedy the pagan tendency of the Astree a priest, Camus de Pontcarre, wrote a series of Christian pastorals. Racan produced in 1625 a pastoral drama, Les Bergeries, founded on the Astree of D'Urfe.
In England the chief example of the form is Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (written in 158o), published in 159o). In 1584 were published two pastoral dramas, the Gallathea of Lyly and the Arraignment of Paris of Peele. Greene became more and more imbued with the Italian spirit of pastoral. His Menaphon and his Never too Late are pure bucolic romances. In Rosalynde (159o) Lodge made an interesting contribution to English litera ture in general, and to Arcadian poetry in particular. This beau tiful and fantastic book is modelled more exactly upon the mas terpiece of Sannazaro than any other in our language. In 1598 Bartholomew Young published an English version of the Diana of Montemayor.
In Spain, France and England there was a strong native tradi tion of bucolic verse which blended easily, though in differing pro portions, with classical impulses from Theocritus, Virgil and the Italians. The Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega (d. 1536) is Virgilian, the lyrics of Gil Vicente are of the soil, like the songs of Shakespeare. In the Bergerie of Remy Belleau the new art of Sannazaro joins hand with the simplicity of the Old French. pastourelle. It was probably the study of the eclogues of Cle ment Marot that led Spenser to the composition of what is the finest example of pastoral in the English language, the Shepherd's Calendar, printed in 1579. This famous work is divided into 12 months, and it is remarkable because in it Spenser turns from the artificial Latin style of pastoral and brings upon the pastoral stage actual rustics using their own peasant dialect, a departure from precedent for which Sidney blamed him.