The New Pastoral: Poet & Context

The New Pastoral: Poet & Context

Overview and Themes

• “The New Pastoral” is a meditation on the shifted landscapes of modernity in rural Ireland.
• Major themes include modernisation, loss of identity, the transforming rural landscape and the altering relationship between human and the environment.

Essential Lines and Interpretation

• “She stepped out into an electronic field” sets the stage for a futuristic, metaphysical depiction of the familiar rural later in the poem.
• In the line “Her brood fumbled it off the hens”, the use of ‘fumbled’ portrays a reduced human competence in nature which reflects changing rural conditions.

Use of Imagery and Symbolism

• The image of the “Print-out birds”, birds transformed into mere print-outs, is a strong symbol for the metamorphosis of rural life.
• “Silos of silence” offer a powerful symbol for the enhanced disconnect between humans and their traditional rural surroundings.

Metaphors and Their Interpretations

• The metaphor “Fields that have whitened into urban snow” effectively highlights the encroachment of urbanisation on rural landscapes.
• The false dawn of “Quartz light” in the final verse represents the illusory progress promised by modernisation.

Focus on the Irish Landscape

• Boland’s use of rural imagery such as “The raspberries microwaved into summer” is a stark depiction of the increasingly artificial constructs within modern rural life.
• The imagery of “Shamrocks grown under strip light” evokes a sense of irrevocable loss and corruption of traditional Irish identity ingrained in nature.

Reflections and Wider Implications

• The closing verse “Then the quartz light. The false dawn.” reflects an uncertainty and anxiety over the changing face of the pastoral.
• The identity crisis, evident through “What will break will be much more than dawn”, runs parallel to the shifting pastoral, emphasising how the loss of landscape ties directly back to loss of cultural identity.