The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Marlowe wrote his poem within the pastoral tradition, which dates to Greek antiquity. Beginning with Hesiod (circa 750 – 650 BCE), whose "Works and Days" reflects on humankind’s labor, the tradition was further developed in the rustic, or idyll poems of Theocritus in the 3rd century BCE. However, for Marlowe and his contemporaries, the works of Roman poets Ovid and Virgil, such as the latter’s Eclogues and the Georgics, would have been more heavily influential, particularly for Marlowe who was a master of Latin, had translated Ovid while at university, and likely modeled his play Dido, Queen of Carthage (1587) on Virgil’s epic Aeneid (circa 19 BCE). Medieval Italian writers such as Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Francesco Petrarch also explored the pastoral style, developing the idea of a locus amoenus (or “pleasant place”) across genres, from lyric poems such as Petrarch’s Carmen Bucolicum (1357), a collection of 12 pastoral poems, to Boccaccio’s short story collection The Decameron (1353). The locus amoenus also symbolized a site of innocence and pleasure, where labor is grounded in nature, leisurely, and enjoyable. Later Italian poets, such as Bernardo Tasso, continued this tradition, infusing pastoral poems with a sense of innocence and beauty.