From Pastoral to Ecopoetry

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The Pastoral has been one of the longest-lasting and frequently most prestigious genres (or modes) of poetry in English-language traditions. This course explores how and why poetry that extols the virtues of rural life became so pervasive; how it adapted in the face of changing social, economic, and environmental contexts over more than a thousand years; what problems Pastoral poetry addresses and what problems it causes; how modern and postmodern poets have responded to the Pastoral tradition in a decidedly post-pastoral age; last but not least, what work Pastoral poetry can still do for readers today, and where this genre (or mode) can still do important cultural work. In the first half of the course, we will read broadly across the long history of Pastoral poetry, with texts from the classical period, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period. The second half of the semester will be spent interrogating the changes that have occurred in the Pastoral genre (or mode) since the Industrial Revolution. An important part of the course will be looking at recent and contemporary engagements with the genre (or mode) in which poets critique or react against its conventions in the pursuit of newer and truer forms of ecopoetry. The critical framework for the course will be provided by ecocriticism--the relatively new critical approach that believes it is possible and useful to read literary texts from an environmental perspective.