The Pastoral: A Gloss for Social Inequality?
I stumbled across perhaps my favourite argument that I have read in research so far earlier this week. In Terry Gifford's "Pastoral", Gifford introduces the question as to whether pastoralism in literature constitutes a gloss for social and political inequality. This post isn't going to be overly formal but I found this idea so interesting to think about that I thought I'd try and explore it a bit more. Firstly, what is the pastoral? Well, it's not very clear cut. Or at least, not anymore. Gifford talks about this a lot in the first chapter and identifies three key ways we might approach the term; - The earliest definition of "pastoral" is the literary tradition largely intended for urban audiences which would regale cool stories of shepherds chilling on the hillsides and living in harmony with nature. This developed into a broader tradition whereby characters would "retreat" into nature and bring back some insights and knowledge for the...