Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama

Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama, by W. W. Greg, is a literary inquiry with special reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in England. The preface says that some ten years ago, it may be, Mr. St. Loe Strachey suggested that the writer should write an article on English Pastoral Drama for a magazine of which he was then editor.

The text finds, as early as the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, a poem by Severus Sanctus Endelechius, variously entitled Carmen bucolicum de virtute signi crucis domini or de mortibus boum. The text says that to the substitution of narrative for action it owes most of the finest poetic passages of the play, among them the description of the youthful loves of Aminta and Silvia and the former's ruse to win a kiss. The text says it is neither to the mellow autumn of his art nor yet to the storm and stress of adolescence that we must look if we would discover Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral tradition.