In English literature the pastoral is a familiar trait of Renaissance poetry. Edmund Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, as the first major Elizabethan pastoral, of considerably greater length than any other work of this kind, used the pastoral as a means for political and religious discussion. It imitated not only classical models but also pastoral poets of France and Italy and succeeded in bringing about a new vogue for pastoral. Shakespeare's love lyrics and those of Ben …showed first 75 words of 716 total…

…showed last 75 words of 716 total…little more than a dream. The idea of being able to halt the rush of your life enough to appreciate the beauty of the world. Pastoral poetry is widely considered to be outdated in modern society, and comes across as rather a bizarre and uninteresting genre. It was a sudden vogue that died with renaissance England yet many of the simpler poems that were born out of it remain as pure, simple love lyrics today.