[1] Written in emulation of Tasso's Aminta, it was extremely successful and remained the most popular work of secular literature in Western Europe for almost two hundred years.

Although his masterpiece, Il pastor fido (published in 1590), was completed during a prolonged absence from the Este court, it is generally supportive of existing social structures.

In the late 1580s he was involved in a bitter polemic with Giason Denores, who objected in particular to Guarini's mixing of tragic and comic genres in his Pastor fido.

[6] Guarini was a prominent member of several academies, including the Eterei of Padua, the Crusca of Florence, the Innominati of Parma, the Gelati of Bologna, and the Umoristi of Rome.

His most notable work, Il pastor fido, had its first dramatic representation in honor of the nuptials of the Duke of Savoy and Catalina Michaela of Austria in 1585[6] (published in 1590 in Venice; 20th rev.

Guarini's lyric follows the manner of Anacreon, Stesichorus, Catullus and Petrarch as opposed to the more majestic one of Pindar, Horace and Della Casa.

[9] Another of Guarini's poems which was set by numerous madrigalists was Cor mio, deh non languire ("Dear heart, I prithee do not waste away").

While Guarini's work may be seen as lacking the deep feeling and sentiment of another poet at the Este court, Torquato Tasso, it was precisely this quality which commended it to musical setting at a time when excessive emotionalism had become unfashionable.

The work, modeled after ancient Greek and Roman comedies, aimed to bring a sense of dignity both of a moral and artistic nature back to the genre.