SOURCE: Magowan, Robin. “Dominique: The Genesis of a Pastoral.” L'Esprit Createur 13, no. 4 (winter 1973): 340-50.

In the following essay, Magowan analyzes pastoral attributes in Fromentin's Dominique.

Most criticism is end-oriented. Just as we judge a novel's success by its ending, so we refuse to extend our speculations beyond the final published draft. But a work of art is more than a single autonomous whole. It is also a thing in process. It talks about time and is itself the product of time, and these two times must have something to do with one another if their world is to be thought a true world. Thus much of the confusion in genre studies—and their lack of concreteness—comes from our being interested only in the vision, the value statements, projected. While much has been written on pastoral, no one has ever explained exactly how a writer could commit himself...