Rosalynde | Page 3

to the
class of books of which Sidney's' "Arcadia" is the most famous
representative in English. The "Arcadia" was published in 1590--the
same year as "Rosalynde"--though it had been written some ten years
earlier. The literary genus to which they belong is a very old one. The

prose pastoral romance, that kind of prose romance which professes to
delineate the scenery, sentiments, and incidents of shepherd life,[1] is,
like most other literary forms, Greek in origin. It goes back at least to
the "Daphnis and Chloe" of Longus, the Byzantine romancer of the
fifth century A.D. Longus represents the romantic spirit in expiring
classicism, the longing of a highly artificial society for primitive
simplicity, and the endeavor to create a corresponding ideal. Indeed the
pastoral has always been a product of a highly artificial age. Naturally,
therefore, it has always been written by men of the city rather than by
men of the country. It is distinctly an urban product. That it was so
accounts in part for the idealized view of life that it presents. Speaking
of the pastoral, Doctor Johnson says in his ponderous way:[2]
Our inclination to stillness and tranquillity is seldom much lessened by
long knowledge of the busy and tumultuary part of the world. In
childhood we turn our thoughts to the country, as to the region of
pleasure; we recur to it in old age as a port of rest, and perhaps with
that secondary and adventitious gladness, which every man feels on
reviewing those places, or recollecting those occurrences, that

contributed to his youthful enjoyments, and bring him back to the
prime of life, when the world was gay with the bloom of novelty, when
mirth wantoned at his side, and hope
sparkled before him.
[Footnote 1: Dr. Johnson defines a pastoral as "the representation of an
action or passion by its effects upon a country life." See _The
Rambler_, Nos. 36 and 37.]
[Footnote 2: The Rambler, No. 36. See also Steele's essays on the
pastoral in The Guardian, Nos. 22, 23, 28, 30, 32. No. 22 is particularly
interesting, because in it Steele assigns three causes for the popularity
of the pastoral form,--man's love of ease, his love of simplicity, and his
love of the country. Pope's remarks on the pastoral, which may be
found in The Guardian, No. 40, are also worth referring to in this
connection.]
Probably Doctor Johnson was entirely right about the perennial charm
of the pastoral and in his theory that its charm is potent in the direct

ratio to the square of the distance that separates the writer and reader
from rural life itself. It is not strange, therefore, that in the newly
awakened interest in the classics that characterized the Renaissance,
when literature was so largely a product of city culture, the revival of
the pastoral should have been one of the first manifestations of the
earlier Renaissance humanism.
Spanish Influence. Even when all due credit has been given to the
charm of the pastoral romance, it still remains doubtful whether the
influence of the Greek and Latin classics alone is sufficient to explain
its vogue in the Elizabethan age. Their influence, though undoubtedly
great, was scarcely sufficient to account for the naturalization in
England of so exotic a form as the pastoral. Indeed the pastoral never
was thoroughly naturalized, remaining to the end somewhat alien to its
English surroundings. Shepherds with their oaten pipes were never
quite at home in the English climate, which is ill suited to life in the
open, to loose tunics, and bare limbs.[1] It is doubtful whether the
pastoral would have become popular in England without the stimulus
furnished by contemporary European literature. Most influential of
these contemporary influences was the "Diana Enamorada," published
about 1558, a Spanish pastoral romance written by Jorge de
Montemayor, a Portuguese by birth, a Spaniard by adoption. Although
the English translation of the "Diana" did not appear until 1598[2] it
was well known to Sidney, who translated parts of it, and imitated it in
his "Arcadia" (1590), and to Greene, whose "Menaphon," also an
imitation of the "Diana," had appeared in 1589, the year before
"Rosalynde." Though it is entirely possible that Lodge may have
imitated Greene, it is probable that he, like Greene, had read the
"Diana," for it is certain that he knew Spanish,[3] as well as French and
Italian, and the "Diana" was already, it is said,[4] the most popular
book in Europe.
[Footnote 1: Steele, speaking of the pastoral (The Guardian, No. 30),
says, "The difference of the climate is also to be considered, for what is
proper in Arcadia, or even in Italy, might be quite absurd in a colder
country."]

[Footnote 2: Though not published till 1598, Bartholomew Young's
translation of the "Diana" was made in 1583.]
[Footnote 3: In the