ABSTRACT
The Accidental takes place within the familiar landscape of pastoral, defined by the contrasting spaces of the city and the country. The proliferation of attention to pastoral has produced a new generation of criticism. These readings often seek to navigate the conflicted history of pastoral by homing in on specific uses of the tradition, creating a growing number of pastoral sub-categorisations – themselves aptly termed ‘prefix-pastorals’ by Terry Gifford – that range from ‘radical’, ‘post’, and ‘postmodern’ pastoral to ‘choked’, ‘dark’, and even ‘necro’ pastoral. Elegies for a vanishing agrarian lifestyle have featured heavily in contemporary fictions of rural life in Britain. Increasing urbanisation and the decline of rural work due to the influence of new technologies are shown to be changing the social and material landscapes of the country, and their effects are only exacerbated by the impact of a changing climate.
