The Shepherd, the Volk, and the Middle Class

Analyzes the transformation of German-language pastoral from a portrayal of the idyllic lives of herdsmen into a vehicle for the concerns and aspirations of the middle class. European pastoral tradition traces its roots to Theocritus's Idylls and Virgil's Eclogues , which portrayed herdsmen pursuing love and art. While the lives of shepherds, or of country folk generally, remain the ostensible subject of pastoral, Elystan Griffiths argues that in the German context after 1750 its central concern