Eclogues

Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome in the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38 BC. Virgil introduced political clamor largely absent from Theocritus’ poems, called idylls (“little scenes” or “vignettes”), even though erotic turbulence disturbs the “idyllic” landscapes of Theocritus. Virgil’s book contains ten pieces, each called not an idyll but an eclogue (“draft” or “selection” or “reckoning”), populated by and large with herdsmen imagined conversing and performing amoebaean singing in largely rural settings, whether suffering or embracing revolutionary change or happy or unhappy love. Performed with great success on the Roman stage, they feature a mix of visionary politics and eroticism that made Virgil a celebrity, legendary in his own lifetime. Several scholars have attempted to identify the organizational principles underpinning the construction of the book. The book is arguably based on an alternation of antiphonal poems (e.g., dialogues) with non-dramatic/narrative poems.