The tradition of Virgilian pastoral in the poetry of Louis MacNeice, Robert Frost & Seamus Heaney

There are many studies of pastoral poetry, but few that consider twentieth or twenty-first century pastorals and their relation to the pastoral tradition. This, in part, stems from the difficulty in reducing the diverse forms of pastoral to a single theory. Rather than attempt to accommodate pastoral in its entirety, this study investigates one aspect of the pastoral, the Virgilian pastoral. It begins with an analysis of Virgil's Bucolica and then follows the development of the Virgilian pastoral from the classical period onwards. Finally, this study performs close readings on Virgilian pastorals by three modern poets: Louis MacNeice, Robert Frost and Seamus Heaney. The result is a demonstration of how the classical currents of the Virgilian pastoral continue to exert a presence in modern poetry, as well as an understanding of how new poetic practices have adapted the Virgilian pastoral.