“Understand a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures.”

Defending the importance of plausibility and natural characterisation in pastoral drama · Preface, To the Reader

• Character
• Nature
• Writing

“Thus much I hope will serve to justify my poem, and make you understand it; to teach you more for nothing, I do not know that I am in conscience bound.”

A witty assertion of the author's limits when confronted with readers who have misunderstood his work · Preface, To the Reader

• Readers
• Wit
• Writing

“If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge in this kind of poem, lay down the book, or read this, which I would wish had been the prologue.”

A characteristically direct invitation to readers to question their assumptions before judging a literary form · Preface, To the Reader

• Judgement
• Knowledge
• Reading