Second Thoughts on "The Pastoral" in Poetry - The Dichotomy of 'Picture' and 'Experience'
__We may sometimes have occasions when travelling, to see the pastoral as we pass through places of beautiful scenery - lakes, streams, trees, fields, flowers, animals grazing. And of course, in this pastoral picture, wherever there are animals bred for commerce of some sort, there is a need for shepherds - those who take responsibility for the welfare of these animals.
Many people are attracted by the look and idea of what appears to be an idyllic picture. Surviving day to day, unlike this passing glimpse we may have when we move through this scenery on our way to somewhere else, however, tells a different story. It is not an easy life being a shepherd. There is a dichotomy between the pastoral picture seen either as real landscape, or in photographs or art pieces, or written about in literature, and the experience of living day to day in the pastoral. The pastoral, rather than being without tension, gives much tension, sometimes between actual survival and not surviving. In literature, we sense a tension between what we too live in actuality, and what is described as something peaceful - the ideal of the imagination as a most beautiful picture. It calls to us. It not only speaks to the inner longing for peace and tranquillity, but also makes us feel that somehow what and where we live is not fully satisfying.
In a book, Isolation Shepherd, by Iain R. Thomson, he describes his life and experiences as a shepherd in Glen Strathmore (called locally, Strathfarrar), located at the southwest end of Loch Monar. This area is in the Scottish highlands, approximately at the latitude of Inverness and westward, but inland of the west coast of Scotland. It is ruggedly beautiful. The Glen is about 30 miles in length and dominated by Sgur na Lapaich, a 'hill' of 3773 feet. The hill carries snow well into July on the north and is crowned by an outcrop of white quartz rock. This area in Scotland was one of the last unspoiled parts of the highlands. Iain Thomson spent four of his shepherding years here, from 1956-1960.
For Iain Thomson and his wife and young family, nearest neighbours were miles away and life was lived in isolation except for meeting up with other shepherds when going about his shepherding work. The shepherd's best friend and co-workers were dogs. Thomson was in charge of 500 breeding ewes located in two areas of the strath.. The north side gathering involved about 12 to 15 miles of walking over high tops just short of four thousand feet. The cottage where he lived was located at just over the 500 foot mark. There was obviously much climbing involved in his work. On the south side of the main Strathmore glen, the sheep gather was on one lengthy hillside. It seemed more straightforward and gave less walking, but it was difficult and dangerous due to the steep and slippery nature of much of the ground.
This was a real setting then, for Thomson and other shepherds within the pastoral that makes one realize when reading his book, that there is tension that exists as Thomson describes the following experience:
"On this gather [the south] Iain MacKay was top man and followed the ridge and peaks using Roy, his old Skye collie. A large black and tan animal with a long head and powerful muscle, this rangy dog was a remnant of a useful collie type now almost vanished. Moving on a hill came naturally to him and Roy's loping, seemingly unhurried stride actually covered the ground deceptively fast. He didn't lie or creep about eyeing the sheep in the fashion of the modern border collies of T.V. fame. Walking up steadily to his sheep he would stand when required to stop, only lying down with reluctance and obvious disgust.
Roy was truly a dog of the high tops and the wide gatherings, and Iain clearing the ridges on a south side gather would make his veteran dog stand and voice ringing barks down the corries to hunt any top sheep away down to me as I worked the middle ground. This was a singularly difficult route, leading me along narrow ledges which, sweet with short natural fescue grasses, would tempt sheep into potentially dangerous positions. The shepherd required both a head for heights and a sure foot which as well as confidence in such movement were essential safety factors. Gathering such ground the dogs had to be sternly checked from advancing rapidly toward sheep venturing precariously for a selected bite. Instead much noise or some throwing ploys proved safer, tactics designed to flush the sheep rather than drive them by force. On odd occasions too much force without warning caused us to witness a sickening spectacle. The unfortunate sheep in sudden terror at spotting a dog dived unheedingly off the ledge spinning over and over, falling perhaps two hundred feet to bounce and thud, down to where the ground sloped out. A dramatic lesson for the shepherd warning him to step carefully and avoid such a result. To this day I still can hear in my mind the sickening wool-muffled thuds of a fatally falling sheep. Sometimes, particularly Cheviots, if startled by a dog, galloped wildly down a steepish hillside. Whilst their front legs managed to hold a stride they lost control of the hind legs which hideously stretched out behind like the handles of a wheelbarrow. The crazed sheep would not stop and might reach the bottom in this condition, their backs broken. Recovery was impossible and out of kindness on the rare occasion it happened, I killed with a blow to the head from a handy stone.
Happily gruesome incidents of this nature seldom occurred and a smoothly moving gather on the south side of Strathmore filled a day with many pleasures. It combined the satisfaction of using one's skill in dog handling with personal strength and sureness of movement."
The picture from a distance and the experience up close and personal, indeed present a dichotomy. So where did the pastoral, so popular in English literature, actually begin anyway? This is a question that I believe deserved some research. In my travels through some books in the library, I came across the name "Theocritus", as being the creator of the pastoral. He lived in the 3rd-century B.C. More on Theocritus will be written in the next blog.
Many people are attracted by the look and idea of what appears to be an idyllic picture. Surviving day to day, unlike this passing glimpse we may have when we move through this scenery on our way to somewhere else, however, tells a different story. It is not an easy life being a shepherd. There is a dichotomy between the pastoral picture seen either as real landscape, or in photographs or art pieces, or written about in literature, and the experience of living day to day in the pastoral. The pastoral, rather than being without tension, gives much tension, sometimes between actual survival and not surviving. In literature, we sense a tension between what we too live in actuality, and what is described as something peaceful - the ideal of the imagination as a most beautiful picture. It calls to us. It not only speaks to the inner longing for peace and tranquillity, but also makes us feel that somehow what and where we live is not fully satisfying.
In a book, Isolation Shepherd, by Iain R. Thomson, he describes his life and experiences as a shepherd in Glen Strathmore (called locally, Strathfarrar), located at the southwest end of Loch Monar. This area is in the Scottish highlands, approximately at the latitude of Inverness and westward, but inland of the west coast of Scotland. It is ruggedly beautiful. The Glen is about 30 miles in length and dominated by Sgur na Lapaich, a 'hill' of 3773 feet. The hill carries snow well into July on the north and is crowned by an outcrop of white quartz rock. This area in Scotland was one of the last unspoiled parts of the highlands. Iain Thomson spent four of his shepherding years here, from 1956-1960.
For Iain Thomson and his wife and young family, nearest neighbours were miles away and life was lived in isolation except for meeting up with other shepherds when going about his shepherding work. The shepherd's best friend and co-workers were dogs. Thomson was in charge of 500 breeding ewes located in two areas of the strath.. The north side gathering involved about 12 to 15 miles of walking over high tops just short of four thousand feet. The cottage where he lived was located at just over the 500 foot mark. There was obviously much climbing involved in his work. On the south side of the main Strathmore glen, the sheep gather was on one lengthy hillside. It seemed more straightforward and gave less walking, but it was difficult and dangerous due to the steep and slippery nature of much of the ground.
This was a real setting then, for Thomson and other shepherds within the pastoral that makes one realize when reading his book, that there is tension that exists as Thomson describes the following experience:
"On this gather [the south] Iain MacKay was top man and followed the ridge and peaks using Roy, his old Skye collie. A large black and tan animal with a long head and powerful muscle, this rangy dog was a remnant of a useful collie type now almost vanished. Moving on a hill came naturally to him and Roy's loping, seemingly unhurried stride actually covered the ground deceptively fast. He didn't lie or creep about eyeing the sheep in the fashion of the modern border collies of T.V. fame. Walking up steadily to his sheep he would stand when required to stop, only lying down with reluctance and obvious disgust.
Roy was truly a dog of the high tops and the wide gatherings, and Iain clearing the ridges on a south side gather would make his veteran dog stand and voice ringing barks down the corries to hunt any top sheep away down to me as I worked the middle ground. This was a singularly difficult route, leading me along narrow ledges which, sweet with short natural fescue grasses, would tempt sheep into potentially dangerous positions. The shepherd required both a head for heights and a sure foot which as well as confidence in such movement were essential safety factors. Gathering such ground the dogs had to be sternly checked from advancing rapidly toward sheep venturing precariously for a selected bite. Instead much noise or some throwing ploys proved safer, tactics designed to flush the sheep rather than drive them by force. On odd occasions too much force without warning caused us to witness a sickening spectacle. The unfortunate sheep in sudden terror at spotting a dog dived unheedingly off the ledge spinning over and over, falling perhaps two hundred feet to bounce and thud, down to where the ground sloped out. A dramatic lesson for the shepherd warning him to step carefully and avoid such a result. To this day I still can hear in my mind the sickening wool-muffled thuds of a fatally falling sheep. Sometimes, particularly Cheviots, if startled by a dog, galloped wildly down a steepish hillside. Whilst their front legs managed to hold a stride they lost control of the hind legs which hideously stretched out behind like the handles of a wheelbarrow. The crazed sheep would not stop and might reach the bottom in this condition, their backs broken. Recovery was impossible and out of kindness on the rare occasion it happened, I killed with a blow to the head from a handy stone.
Happily gruesome incidents of this nature seldom occurred and a smoothly moving gather on the south side of Strathmore filled a day with many pleasures. It combined the satisfaction of using one's skill in dog handling with personal strength and sureness of movement."
The picture from a distance and the experience up close and personal, indeed present a dichotomy. So where did the pastoral, so popular in English literature, actually begin anyway? This is a question that I believe deserved some research. In my travels through some books in the library, I came across the name "Theocritus", as being the creator of the pastoral. He lived in the 3rd-century B.C. More on Theocritus will be written in the next blog.
posted by maggiesong at 11:40 AM
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