![]() ![]() It was the tradition of natural poetry that William Wordsworth had in mind when he proposed that poetry "takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." This tranquil state might be most easily inspired if the poet would go out into nature, observe the world around him, and translate those emotions and observations into verse. In "Januarye," Spenser compares the shepherd's unreturned affection with "the frosty ground," "the frozen trees" and "his own winterbeaten flocks." In "April" he writes "Like April showers, so streams the trickling tears." Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Edmund Spenser’s The Shephearde’s Calendar are English triumphs of the form, the latter relying on the months of the year to trace the changes in a shepherd's life. It became something of a requirement for young poets, a form they had to master before embarking upon great original work. The eclogue also flourished in the Italian Renaissance, its most most notable authors being Dante and Petrarch. The first eclogue was written by Virgil in 37 B.C.E. The more familiar form of surviving pastoral poetry that has retained its integrity is the eclogue, a poem attuned to the natural world and seasons, placed in a pleasant, serene, and rural place, and in which shepherds often converse. The Biblical Song of Songs is also considered an idyll, as it tells its story of love and passion by continuously evoking imagery from the natural world. An idyll was originally a short, peaceful pastoral lyric, but has come to include poems of epic adventure set in an idealized past, including Lord Alfred Tennyson's take on Arthurian legend, The Idylls of the King. ![]() to glorify and honor the simplicity of rural life-creating such well known characters as Lycidas, who has inspired dozens of poems as the archetypal shepherd, including the famous poem "Lycidas" by John Milton. The Greek poet Theocritus began writing idylls in the third century B.C.E. Poets have long been inspired to tune their lyrics to the variations in landscape, the changes in season, and the natural phenomena around them. ![]()
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