George Crabbe's The Village has long been perceived as a response to the flowery pastoral poetry of the late 18th century, a genre characterized by the praise of the countryside and the lives simple shepherds and farmers. Indeed, Crabbe presents his dreary country village and the squalid existence of its rural poor using the same kinds of literary devices endemic to the traditional pastoral, suggesting his intent to denigrate this often misguided species of poetry. However, to analyze The Village as mere parody is to ignore the weighty social implications of the poem, which is ingenious in employing rhetorical strategies that speak to both the intellect and emotions of its audience. By wresting ownership of the countryside from the poet's hands, allowing the reader to imaginatively explore the rural setting, and hijacking traditional pastoral tools for personal use, Crabbe creates a strong argument for the immediacy of the plight of the rural poor. of rural poverty in The Village clearly goes beyond mere parody of the genre of pastoral poetry, appealing to the reader's conscience so that he or she can empathize with or even actively work to alleviate the social ills of the peasant class. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first major strategy that Crabbe employs to force the reader to reconsider his views on rural life is to separate the pastoral poet from the peasant. From the beginning of The Village, Crabbe wrests ownership of the pastoral from the poets who idealize it: "Yea, so the Muses sing of happy lovers, / For the Muses never knew their sorrows" (21-22). We must understand that those who idealize the countryside and those who reside in it live in separate worlds, and the pleasant vision we receive in traditional pastoral poetry ignores the harsh reality of rural poverty. Crabbe goes on to emphasize the different worlds by contrasting the poet's depiction of carefree country life and the reality of bleak peasant labor. He writes, "They boast of their peasant pipes; but the peasants now / abandon their pipes and trudge after the plow" (23-24). Here, the soft “p” consonant of “peasant” and “pipes” transforms into the looming drumbeat of “plod” and “plow,” revealing a clear break between the worlds of the poet and that of the farmer. Furthermore, Crabbe creates distance between the poet and the peasant by illustrating the absurdity of a poet even trying to speak to a poor rural labourer: "Can the poets soothe you, when you are pining for bread, / Wrapping myrtles round your shed in ruin? / Can their light tales prevail your heavy sorrows, or do you cheerfully cheer up the weary hour?” Clearly, “airy cheer” is outside the language of those dealing with “heavy sorrows,” and so traditional pastoral poetry is unable to communicate with or for the peasants it claims to represent. Crabbe goes so far as to accuse of hypocrisy those poets who create false images of peasant life, suggesting that they personally despise the people they claim to glorify. He writes, "Oh! Play not with desires you cannot feel, / Nor scoff at the misery of a spoiled meal; / Plain, unwholesome, simple, not plentiful, / As thou that praisest would never deign to touch" (168- 71). That such elitist poets choose to falsely exalt a class of people with whom they do not personally associate is more than insincere, Crabbe argues, but ultimately offensive and cruel. But Crabbe does not simply analyze the pastoral poet and his subject externally. Suddenly addressing his directlyaudience, Crabbe challenges the reader to imaginatively explore a country cottage with his speaker and to identify the source of the carefree pastoral feeling. You gentle souls, who dream of rural comfort, who like the smooth stream and the sweetest sonnet; Go! if the peacemaker shares your praises, go and look within and ask if peace is there; if peace be his, that weary drooping sire; O his, that offspring around their feeble fire; O his, that pale matron, whose trembling hand lights the wretched hearth the expiring brand! (172-79) This stanza is effective because it forces the reader to imaginatively place themselves in the world of the pastoral poem, actively engaging with images of a miserable horse, poor, cold children huddled around a fire, and their sick mother. These jarring portraits contrast sharply with the "rural comfort" sought by the pastoral poet and give the reader a sense of being personally part of the process of discovery. Crabbe's involvement of the reader in the discovery of the truth allows for the kind of epiphanic moment necessary for true change in attitudes and beliefs. Crabbe also gains a measure of authority by allowing the reader to face the moral decision of how to behave. with the reality of pastoral poverty. He writes: "when amidst such pleasant scenes I trace / The poor and industrious natives of the place, / ... While some, with weaker heads and weaker hearts, / Deplor their fortune, but support their sides / Then I will dare these true evils to hide / In the trappings of poetic pride?” (41-48). Here, Crabbe allows the reader to imagine himself as a poet deciding whether to propagate the false but satisfying pastoral aesthetic, described as "tinsel of tinsel," or whether to honestly confront "true evils." At this point in the poem we already understand the importance of addressing rural poverty bluntly, but, by allowing us to make the decision imaginatively, Crabbe gives the reader ownership over those beliefs. Another tactic employed by Crabbe is to hijack the standard devices of pastoral poetry to convince us of the severity of rural poverty. Even the most basic satire of The Village is imbued with social consciousness. An example occurs when Crabbe mocks the pastoral poet's ploy of describing various flora and fauna, a ploy usually employed to create an image of serenity and peace in the countryside. The village of Crabbe, however, is populated by grim weeds that seem to be tearing and clawing at each other. "There the poppies nod, mock the hope of toil, / There the blue bugloss paints the barren ground; / Robust and tall, above the slender sheaf, / The slimy mallow waves its silky leaf; / Above the young shoots it throws the charlock a shadow, / And the clutching weeds cling to the sickly thread,” Crabbe writes (71-76). These plants do more than refute the pastoral poetry's implication that the beauty of the countryside is universal, they provide a metaphor for the plight of the farmer. That the image of the humble mallow vainly raising its leaves while the blue bugloss looks down is juxtaposed with images of the endless labor of farmers suggests a symbolic role for these plants, illustrating the real-life contempt of the rich for the suffering . rural poor. The human characters who populate the village of Crabbe are presented as simple people, but they are certainly not imbued with the carefree nature and folk virtues that one would expect from a traditional pastoral poem. Crabbe describes the people of his village in animal terms, employing the naturalistic imagery of the pastoral to create an unexpected and dissenting perspective: "Here wanders joylessly a wild amphibious race, / With dark sorrow.