Clarifies the different uses of pastoral, and traces the history of the genre from its origins in the poetic dialogues of supposed shepherds, to Elizabethan dra... » 

Clarifies the different uses of pastoral, and traces the history of the genre from its origins in the poetic dialogues of supposed shepherds, to Elizabethan dramas such as The Winters Tale, through the poetry of Pope and Wordsworth, to rural novels and contemporary American nature writing. «