Abstract
When William Wordsworth called Michael a pastoral poem, he pointed to a literary tradition that seems at first glance far removed from this tale of a Lake-country shepherd. What has his poem in common with Marlowe's 'Passionate Shepherd,' for example, or with the sort of pastoral written by Pope or Ambrose Philips a century earlier? Its opening lines evoke anything but a sense of delicate pastoral charm and tranquillity. Instead there is a 'tumultuous brook' and the prospect of a struggle on an 'upright path' that would challenge an experienced climber. And surely 'Courage!' had never before been demanded of one who would enter the pastoral world.
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