Topics in Comparative Literature: Pastoral Literature

Why, in 2025, should we read and think about literature that concerns itself with the lives and loves of shepherds? This course takes the position that the reasons are multiple, provocative, and rewarding. Pastoral leads us from what may initially seem picturesque and quaint to broad, compelling questions that address how humans conceptualize and interact with nature, what the role of animals is and should be, how meanings are assigned to landscape and its preservation or destruction, and what versions of the Arcadian locus amoenus (ideally beautiful place) tell us about both conservative and revolutionary potentials of utopian thought. In this time of environmental crisis, the pastoral speaks to us with ever-increasing urgency and authority. Throughout the course, tensions between town and country, enslaved and free, elite and demotic, and sophisticated and naive will frame our discussions. Authors studied will range from Theocritus, Vergil, and Longus to Milton, Tennyson, and J. M. Barrie. Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" and its film adaptation by Ang Lee will cap our survey, affording us the opportunity to review many of the strands-not least of love and longing-that unite the pastoral mode. No prerequisites. Pastoral Literature can count towards major and minor requirements in Environmental Studies.