Some functions of pastoral:

 

Professor Cook: “Why, at a time of increasing urbanisation, is there a revival of pastoral in Britain?”

 

• it provides a utopian setting, an escapist fantasy but also an idealist model for social improvement (Prof. Cook);

 

 

To put the question another way: “Why, at a time of increasing British involvement in colonial ventures, and of the consolidation of Britain as a modern state, is there a revival of pastoral in Britain?”

 

• it disguises the asymmetrical relations of labour, power and exchange that take shape in a newly emerging capitalist economy;

 

therefore

 

• it naturalises existing social and economic structures, seeking to arrest their historical transformation