Abstract
Prevailing scholarship on pastoral literature often overlooks its political and radical dimensions, relegating the form to particular manifestations of the pastoral in Elizabethan England. World literature, however, exhibits a wider range of the pastoral in which poets contest social injustice and serve as voices of resistance against oppression. This paper explores the existence of and connection between the radical pastoral in both the East and West, as exemplified by the classical poetry of Ovid and Pashto pastoral poetry emanating from contemporary Afghanistan. It argues that, despite differences in time and space, both genres of poetry offer forceful criticisms of empire and consider pastoral values, aesthetics, and landscapes as a means of resistance against it. This paper thus examines pastoral poetics’ contribution to social commentary on empire in both imperial Rome and the imperialist present encapsulated by America’s post 9/11 political-military interventions in the Middle East.
Highlights
The Pastoral in Art of Love and AmoresWith reference to Ovid, my argument complements Holleman’s (1971) consideration of the poet’s work within the context of Roman society, registering its hostility to and critique of the Augustan social order
Prevailing scholarship on pastoral literature often overlooks its political and radical dimensions, relegating the form to particular manifestations of the pastoral in Elizabethan England
While current scholarship acknowledges this critical component in the medieval pastoral, I would argue that a radical strain has been extant in pastoral world literature dating back to the pre-Hellenistic Greek pastorals (e.g., Hesiod’s Works and Days) and biblical passages (e.g., The Book of Ruth)
Summary
With reference to Ovid, my argument complements Holleman’s (1971) consideration of the poet’s work within the context of Roman society, registering its hostility to and critique of the Augustan social order. Perhaps more than other poems, Ovid’s critique of the materialism and fixation on opulence that pervades Augustan Rome is encapsulated in Amores 3.8 The speaker in this poem observers a cultural transformation in which poetic “genius” is no longer valued, wealth and position in the Augustan ruling class having supplanted it. Ovid applies the diction of wealth and abundance inversely to critique love as means of commodity acquisition in Augustan society and elevates the poor over the ruling class for offering a more authentic, unconditional love instead His consideration of intimate love and rejection of materialism are, interconnected with an anti-empire perspective. Embracing poetry as source of immortality and spurning the materialist world of privilege in Augustan society is a position espoused by the speaker in Amores 1.15 In response to those in Augustus’ elite circle who condemn poetry as “the work of idle wit” Ovid maintains that true respect and honor is due to poets, (regardless of their social status), whose works resonate with people, not the affluence and might of self-deified emperors
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