A Life of Simplicity, Nature, and Love

• Read the classic pastoral “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”, followed by “Urban Pastoral” Babette Deutsch and “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon.  Compare and contrast how the latter two contemporary, pastoral poems use literary devices to explore the role of nature in human life.

First off, I did not like the "Urban Pastoral". The imagery used to describe the scene in what to me appeared to be New York seemed very dirty and congested when read next to a classical pastoral poem such as "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love". And one cannot say that it is the contemporary nature of the poem that makes is seems so crass because "Let Evening Come" is contemporary but manages to conjure up twilight in an idyllic setting. Kenyon's poem is a more standardized format. Most every stanza begins with the word "let" and every other stanza ends in the single sentence "let evening come". Deutsch's is much less rigid in it's structure, employing  enjambment to further this idea of a broken landscape that is somehow woven together as a whole. The imagery is also starkly contrasting in a fairly obvious way.  Deutsch speaks of a city with pigeons and tramps and ladies who turn up their noses - a pastoral urban wonderland per say. Kenyon on the other hand, speaks of a barn with a hoe in the long grass and a woman peacefully knitting. This is very much a more stereotypical pastoral poem. I believe I like it better since I prefer this idyllic scene to the cityscape.  Both describe the world that surrounds, as well as the idea of love and companionship (though this is mostly found in the classical pastoral poem).