The Italian Precedent: Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia -- Vague Beginnings: Bernardim Ribeiro's Menina e moga -- Allegory and the Neoplatonic Ideal: Jorge de Montemayor's Siete libros de la Diana -- Didactic Pastoral: Caspar Gil Polo's Diana enamorada -- Cervantes' Blood-Spattered Arcadia: La Galatea -- Lope de Vega's Arcadia: A Step Toward the Modern Novel -- The Decline of a Genre: Gabriel de Corral's Cintia de Aranjuez -- Conclusion