A Transformation Of Shakespeare’s Pastoral Ideals In Pastoral Plays

Shakespeare’s dramas As You Like It,The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest display“the pastoral process of retreat and return” commonly used in Western pastoral writings,and they are referred to as “pastoral plays” by some critics.Under the framework of Leo Marx’s pastoral theory,this thesis mainly analyzes the characteristics of Shakespeare’s pastoral writings respectively and the transformation of Shakespeare’s pastoral ideals in his three pastoral plays.In As You Like It Shakespeare inherits profusely the pastoral tradition of nostalgia from his classic predecessors,and he constructs a myth of Arcadian pastoral utopia as a stark contrast with the real world.Meanwhile,as an embodiment of what Leo Marx calls“sentimental pastoralism”,this pastoral utopia also implies a social critique of English early modernization.In his later romance The Winter’s Tale,Shakespeare questions and deconstructs the myth of Arcadia,and gives expression to a progressive but pessimistic“complex pastoralism”.The Tempest is a further exploration of “complex pastoralism".As Shakespeare’s swan song,it is set on an unknown island under the dominance of technology,and this play metaphorically explores the ultimate social ideal vision for mankind,namely middle landscape ideal that lies somewhere between nature and human technological civilization.The pursuit and exploration of ideal human society is one of the important themes recurring in Shakespeare’s pastoral plays.In Shakespeare’s view,such ideal from the beginning to the end is inextricably linked with pastoral countryside and nature,and it conveys a simple ecological lesson of getting close and back to nature.In general,Shakespeare’s pastoral ideals undergo a transformation from sentimental pastoralism to complex pastoralism.Idealization of rural escapism finally gives way to the authenticity of historical reality.As a British playwright living in the early modern era,Shakespeare foresees how human technological civilization and the upcoming age of machines will impact remarkably and irreversibly on the traditional British pastoral lifestyle,in particular its moral values.Thus he offers us middle landscape as a new solution,which can be a valuable source of inspiration for people to resolve the contradiction between technological civilization and nature continuously.It is also enlightening and relevant for us today to tackle ecological crisis and reexamine the relationship between man and nature.