I can’t think of the word I need… it’s not parochial, not provencial, but has to do with that sense of innocence and ideal country life. We used it every day in RenPro, I am using it now in discussing Wordsworth. What the hell is that word?
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Jessica Smith
pastoral
livin’ it here,
oh god, yes. thank you thank you thank you.
I am in the late stages of a long struggle to wedge the cartoon images of Fantasia imprinted from babysitting from the melodies of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony (“Pastoral”), an erasure that there SHOULD be a cartoon grant for, so the grass on your side of the memnotic fence, grated you come to acquire a recording of what used to be my favorite work should you not have one, is greener.
aww… I was gonna guess bucolic
good job–you will also get a point, although i was looking for “pastoral.”
Thesaurus.com (don’t leave home without it) offers as synonyms for pastoral the unusual “campestral” as well as “georgic” and “Arcadian” and “agrestic.”
Don’t bother deciding whether these are point-worthy; I’m just trippin’.
The judges also would’ve accepted “arcadian” and would’ve awarded bonus points for explaining how that related to my RenPro class.
Agrestic makes sense… I didn’t know campestral, but it also makes sense. Sounds nomadic rather than agrarian though?
You might want to check out Lisa Robertson’s take on “pastoral” via “The Weather” and “XEclogue.” I haven’t been able to track down her essay “How Pastoral” but I’m sure that would be a good read, too. I don’t know how “innocent” pastoral really is.
pac, lov and understanding (nvr giv up!)
Stv Ptrmir
no man’s land
minnapolis, mn
usa
word verification: ixcbddlx
Well of course I remember that awhile ago — on the “old” blog maybe — you discussed and had a link to an on-line version of Sannazaro’s Arcadia which I think you were reading for your RenPro class.
I appreciated that because I hadn’t known before then that there was an actual text in back of the term arcadia.
i think ginny’s the one who could explain that– i mean, i don’t know what came first, the term or the text. we were reading sidney’s arcadia.
Bucolic always sounds like a word used to describe a nasty hangover to me.
i’m choked. I would have thought reading Canada Post would have lodged The Pastoral in yer brain!
jk.
word verification=xaumph (love that one.)
Oh, yeah, Jennifer Grotz and I had a talk a long time ago about why poets stopped writing pastorals.
oh! I happened on a topic in my area of expertise more than a day late!
the name “Arcadia” to denote a certain kind of pastoral, classically-tinged refuge does come into heavy renaissance usage with Sannazaro in 1504, and that’s certainly where Sidney gets the inspiration for much of his use of pastoral, as well as the name of his work. (It’s Sidney’s Arcadia, not Sannazaro’s, J. and I read in RenPro.) The name itself of course refers to a greek state, often cited as the birthplace of Pan. The use of “Arcadia” to connote a certain set of pastoral/idyllic/nostalgic associations became quite common, and hasn’t ceased to flourish since.
On the subject of pastoral itself, though (while Arcadia contributes to and is formed by notions of the pastoral genre, the words are certainly not synonymous) I’ve recently been getting into the difference the 18th c. made between pastoral and georgic. I ran up against it both in early 18th c. country house/country poems and then again in dealing with Tom Jones.
The deal with georgic seems to be that it carries a stronger implication of social satire or political commentary, at least for someone like Addison, which is really interesting. Because we tend to look at pastoral as being inherently political, at least political in a negative sense. (I.e., political by explicitly stating its separation from politics.) In renpro, the class consensus certainly seemed to be that Sidney’s disruptions of pastoral tropes in Arcadia were largely in service to his political ends — that he calls attention to his genre in order to make it work for him socially. Or something.
And yet, at least by the 18th c., that mode doesn’t seem to apply any longer. So I’m beginning to wonder in what way genre and politics might always be in opposition to one another. Or are they necessary partners?
p.s.: is this for the mavillia paper?
gillian: yes, bucolic, it’s like the bubolic plague for factory workers?
jason: ah! but i can never remember this word. it just won’t stick!
steve p: sounds good, i’ve been meaning to delve into lisa’s work
ginny: thanks for the long and thoughtful answer! (no, not for renpro, i was just writing a response for citizenship on how the pastoral is working– politically– to create/inform american citizenship in whitman’s “song of myself”)
For bubolic do you mean bubonic?
And thanks from me too to ginny for taking the time to put out alot about Arcadia.
steve, yes, thank you. by “alot” did you mean “a lot”?
I did indeed. Touché!