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Melancholy has been inherent in the pastoral discourse since ancient times. The fact that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pastoral romances also display melancholy elements is rather commonplace. But melancholy was not allowed to predominate in Theocritus’ Idylls or Virgil’ Bucolics, as these authors celebrated an ideal of rest and peaceful leisure. Melancholy threatened and challenged the pastoral genre ; but was not overwhelming. On the contrary, melancholy plays an increasingly important part in modern pastoral romances such as Sidney’s Arcadia or d’Urfé’s L’Astrée. The first version of Arcadia refers to the model of the Terentian comedy, combining idyllic descriptions, sentimental narration, comic scenes and poetic interludes. As Sidney rewrote his novel, he suppressed his allusions to Terence, included more descriptions of battles and more allusions to deaths and defeats. These gave the novel a definitely melancholy slant as the novel eventually remained unfinished. A similar pattern can be seen in L’Astrée which is also left incomplete. In fact, most pastoral romances - Sannazaro’s Arcadia, Sidney’s Arcadia, d’Urfé’s L’Astrée, Belleforest’s La Pyrénée, Montemayor’s Diana, Cervantes’ La Galatea, Mercader’s Prado de Valencia and Lope de Vega’s Arcadia and Pastores de Belen - share similar traits : they all allow melancholy to become overbearing and are all unfinished. This article examines the connection between these two factors which might not be purely coincidental. Through a close study of the genesis of Arcadia and L’Astrée, it claims that incompletion is on Sidney’s and d’Urfé’s part both a consequence and a rejection of the increasing part played by the melancholy that threatened to overcome their works, in spite of the humanistic moral doctrine they supported. It also suggests an explanation as to why melancholy took on such an importance in pastoral romances in particular, by contrast with contemporary pastoral poery and drama.
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