In Changing Landscapes, Peter Lindenbaum reveals the growing frustration of Sidney, Shakespeare, Milton, and other writers of their time with the ideal realm—the carefree Eden, the still-reigning Golden Age—that seemed to dominate pastoral poetry. Impelled by an awareness of human conflict with the world and of the forces that beleaguer from within, these writers proposed, in the guise of the pastoral, a vision of community, individual responsibility, and civic duty in a fallen world.