The Gentle Shepherd (Summarized Edition)

The Gentle Shepherd (1725) is a pastoral comedy, largely in Scots, that fuses Augustan polish with Lowland vigor. Set by the Pentland Hills, its chief plot—the courtship of Patie and Peggy—moves through dialogue and songs fitted to familiar airs. Ramsay retools pastoral staples—disguise, recognition, restoration of order—within a distinctly Scottish moral economy where communal labor and vernacula...