6/29/08

Missing Shepherds, Dead Shepherds, Unreciprocating Shepherds

In my last entry, I started outlining a set of issues that need to be worked through in order to think about Vergil's Eclogue 2 as a model for the relationship between poets. I was arguing that there's a difference between the shepherd who won't return your affection and the predeccessor whose works you're able to respond to but who can't (by virtue of his precedence) return yours.

I think that's right, but I want to think a little about similarities, to see if I can make the case. (I'd like to know more about the 17th century adaptations of the eclogue, in order to really make the case, but that's fine.) What's interesting about pastoral is its closed economy--gifts are given to someone, who passed them on to someone else, who doesn't respond to them. The shepherd poet is a medial figure, misusing another person's gifts to an unresponsive audience--that's not all that far off the self-representation of poets in the 1580's, is it? At the same time, pastoral beauty is always a metaphor for the beauty of the pastoral song itself--the song is its own promise.

I reread it--no real revelations. I guess what I'm particularly interested in is returning the element of desire to the friend argument.