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Cowherds and Saints

The volume’s final chapter follows the one that precedes it in continuing to address the challenge of reconciling the grandeur of classical yet pagan writings, notably Vergil’s canonical epic, and the Christian commitment to the truth of the gospel and its values of simplicity and humility—but takes it up from the perspective of literary production rather than literary interpretation. Drawing on Auerbach’s arguments in his classic Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, it analyses the roles of realism and laughter in this poem and sets out to illuminate the dynamics between the multiple hierarchies of social, educational, and spiritual status that are negotiated by this text, encompassing the variously intersecting relationships between writer and readers, rustic protagonist and saintly patronus, Christian writing and Vergilian epic.