![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Hesiod imagined a time period that he called the Golden Age, in which people lived simple lives, dependent on agriculture, and attuned to the rhythms of nature. Interestingly, pastoral literature and its themes of reflecting on a past era when life was simpler and better dates all the way back to ancient Greece! Hesiod, an ancient Greek poet who probably lived and wrote sometime between 750 and 650 BCE, wrote a long poem called Works and Days in which he imagines different eras in human history. Pastoral literature is often set sometime in the past so that the way of life it depicts can be contrasted with a more corrupt and complicated modern world there is usually also a contrast between the country setting of the pastoral and a less positive urban world. This rural, agricultural lifestyle is often idealized and celebrated as a state of innocent happiness. Pastoral literature refers to a tradition of writing in various genres (including poetry, fiction, and drama) that focuses on describing country life, particularly the life of shepherds. When Thomas Hardy described his plans for the novel that would become Far From the Madding Crowd, he referred to it as "a pastoral tale." By using this term, Hardy connected his forthcoming novel with a long literary tradition. ![]()
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