SOURCE: “Adam Bede as a Pastoral,” in Genre, Vol. IX, No. 1, Spring, 1976, pp. 59-72.

In the following essay, Marotta outlines the characteristics of a pastoral, and discusses the limitations of analyzing the pastoral elements in Adam Bede.

Many critics have attempted to account for the pastoral element in Adam Bede, with varying success. These discussions of the novel as a pastoral are of two kinds, which correspond to two ways of defining the genre. The first, which I will call the “simple” definition, offers a list of pastoral items (the theme of retreat and return, the depiction of a locus amoenus, etc.). The author of the pastoral either presents the items in order to identify the genre to which they contribute, or employs the genre in order to present the items; in both cases, the genre is its own justification, and the motive for its use can be...