The New Pastoral: Key Quotes

Poem - “The New Pastoral”

“The New Pastoral” contrasts the idyllic rural landscapes often depicted in traditional pastoral poetry with the reality of modern suburban life.
Boland employs irony and challenges conventional ideas of the pastoral to provide a fresh, more realistic depiction.
The poem deconstructs the romanticised views of rural life, replacing them with the mundane domesticity of the suburbs.

“The New Pastoral” is seen as a commentary on the shifting societal values and the eradication of nature by the relentless advance of the urban sprawl.
Boland juxtaposes the traditional idyllic images of the pastoral with the reality of suburban living to convey her point.
The poem reflects the growing trend of urbanization and the loss of traditional rural landscapes, particularly relevant to Boland’s Irish context.

The changing landscape and urbanisation theme is central to the poem, with Boland using it to critique modern society’s disregard for nature.
The contrast between traditional and new values is a key theme, portrayed through Boland’s fresh take on the traditional pastoral form.
Themes of commemoration and remembrance appear as Boland uses her brand of pastoral to remember the importance of connectedness with nature in human life.

The poem is filled with Boland’s signature striking imagery and personification, turning ordinary suburban scenes into evocative tableaus.
Boland uses a controlled, measured tone and a resigned rhythm to convey the steady encroachment of urbanisation.
The juxtaposition of pastoral and urban elements underscores the poet’s deeper critique of society’s detachment from nature.
The use of symbolism, particularly of birds and trees, provides a subtle, yet poignant commentary on the loss of natural habitats.

“A milk bottle empty on a doorstep”: This image encapsulates the ordinariness and domesticity of the suburbs, serving as a metaphor for the modern pastoral.
“the spectacle is gone / of the red-gold and the rainbow trout”: Boland uses these lines to lament the loss of traditional pastoral beauty, replaced by mundane urbanisation.
“This is no place for the innocence of air”: This quote underscores the pollution of urban environments, contrasting to the purity generally associated with pastoral settings.
“Only their fossils now, in tarmac layers”: Boland powerfully conveys the extinction of nature and the past. Nature and tradition have become ‘fossils’, buried beneath the hardened shell of the city.