Title:  A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717)

Author:  Thomas Purney

Release Date:  March 10, 2005 [EBook #15313]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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Series Two: 

Essays on Poetry

No. 4

Thomas Purney, A Full Enquiry into the
True Nature of Pastoral (1717)

With an Introduction by
Earl Wasserman

The Augustan Reprint Society
January, 1948
Price:  $1.00

GENERAL EDITORS

Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
Edward Niles Hooker, University of California, Los Angeles
H. T. SWEDENBERG, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles

  ASSISTANT EDITOR

  W. Earl Britton, University of Michigan

  ADVISORY EDITORS

  Emmett L. Avery, State College of Washington
  BENJAMIN BOYCE, University of Nebraska
  LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, University of Michigan
  CLEANTH BROOKS, Yale University
  JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University
  ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago
  SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota
  ERNEST MOSSNER, University of Texas
  JAMES SUTHERLAND, Queen Mary College, London

Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author by Edwards Brothers, Inc.  Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. 1948

INTRODUCTION

In the preface to each of his volumes of pastorals (Pastorals.  After the simple Manner of Theocritus, 1717; Pastorals. viz.  The Bashful Swain:  and Beauty and Simplicity, 1717) Thomas Purney rushed into critical discussions with the breathlessness of one impatient to reveal his opinions, and, after touching on a variety of significant topics, cut himself short with the promise of a future extensive treatise on pastoral poetry.  In 1933 Mr. H.O.  White, unable to discover the treatise, was forced to conclude that it probably had never appeared (The Works of Thomas Purney, ed.  H.O.  White, Oxford, 1933, p. 111), although it had been advertised at the conclusion of Purney’s second volume of poetry as shortly to be printed.  A copy, probably unique, of A Full Enquiry into the True Nature of Pastoral (1717) was, however, recently purchased by the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of the University of California, and is here reproduced.  Despite the obvious failure of the essay to influence