Borrowed Weeds: Courtiers in Disguise in Renaissance Pastoral (Thesis)
Benjamin Hamilton, Fall 2015
Director: Raphael Falco
Committee Members: Orianne Smith and Michele Osherow
Due mostly to an emphasis on disguise, another type of shepherd emerges to join the traditional shepherd of pastoral. This new shepherd is almost a hybrid of the Virgilian herdsmen and the courtier of the Renaissance. The changing pastoral economy of the Renaissance also plays a significant role in the development of the new shepherd. This study finds examples of the post-Virgilian shepherd in many texts but mainly the pastoral romances of Sir Philip Sidney, Jorge de Montemayor, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.