The Eclogues

By Virgil

"The Eclogues" by Virgil, also known as the "Bucolics," is a collection of ten pastoral poems that stand as a cornerstone of the genre. Set against the backdrop of an idealized rural landscape, these poems delve into the lives of shepherds, their loves, and their labors, interweaving personal narratives with the political realities of the time. Virgil's work beautifully captures the pastoral tradition, highlighting themes of love, loss, and the longing for peace in times of change. The "Eclogues" offer a poetic meditation on nature, society, and the human condition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Interactive Media
• Release date: Jun 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910343449

Virgil

Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) was a Roman poet. He was born near Mantua in northern Italy. Educated in rhetoric, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy, Virgil moved to Rome where he was known as a particularly shy member of Catullus’ literary circle. Suffering from poor health for most of his life, Virgil began his career as a poet while studying Epicureanism in Naples. Around 38 BC, he published the Eclogues, a series of pastoral poems in the style of Hellenistic poet Theocritus. In 29 BC, Virgil published his next work, the Georgics, a long didactic poem on farming in the tradition of Hesiod’s Works and Days. In the last decade of his life, Virgil worked on his masterpiece the Aeneid, an epic poem commissioned by Emperor Augustus. Expanding upon the story of the Trojan War as explored in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the hero Aeneas from the destruction of Troy to the discovery of the region that would later become Rome. Posthumously considered Rome’s national poet, Virgil’s reputation has grown through the centuries—in large part for his formative influence on Dante’s Divine Comedy—to secure his position as a foundational figure for all of Western literature.

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Reviews for The Eclogues

[dirkjohnson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Virgil's Eclogues are the second and most influential step in the establishment of the pastoral mode in European and European colonial poetry (the first were some of Theocritus' Idylls). One is of course entitled to an opinion, but one should be aware that one's opinion of Virgil's poetry really doesn't matter; it certainly doesn't have any bearing upon the quality or influence of his poetry. Personally, I prefer many of the Ancient Greeks to any of the Romans. I also frequently feel that Virgil receives too much attention relative to the Greeks. There are many reasons for this, many of them historical. I'm not trying to change things with regard to who is more popular. Virgil was among the greatest of all poets who have ever lived. His Eclogues are perfect gems of the genre, strung on a single necklace. I'll go so far as to say that no poet has ever been greater than Virgil, not even Homer (pretending for the moment that Homer was a single person). To me, both the Odyssey and the Iliad are far superior to the Aeneid. Even this isn't a fair comparison because I've read Homer in Greek but not Virgil in Latin. Yet I must say that Homer didn't write the equivalent of Virgil's Eclogues nor of his Georgics, so Virgil has greater breadth. And, even though I prefer the Idylls of Theocritus to the Eclogues of Virgil, Virgil's Eclogues are more completely of the genre toward which Theocritus only pointed, and as such they are a more finished work of art as a whole than the Idylls, which aren't all written in the same genre. It's true that Virgil copied Theocritus, but also true that Theocritus didn't write an enduring epic poem, or any epic poem as far as we know. Seeing ratings below three for any poetry of Virgil's (since it's Virgil's poems that gets rated in aggregate, not any particular translation or edition) only makes me wonder how someone so ignorant could even end up with a LibraryThing account in the first place. If you don't like Virgil, that's fine. There's no question but that you're entitled to your own likes and dislikes. But please don't presume to rate Virgil or any other truly great poet unless you've read him or her very deeply. If you still think he sucks after reading him deeply in Latin, please do rate him low. And, in that case, please let me know why you think so. But even then it's only one opinion against the judgment of 2,000 years of readers and scholars.On the other hand, possibly those rating Virgil's poetry on the low end of the scale are actually rating the translation or the edition that they read. Such a rating is completely valid, but, unfortunately, such a rating has no meaning whatsoever on LibraryThing. I wonder if there might be a way to create a composite rating for an author with separate ratings for each work and individual editions of each work. This would be something I might find truly useful. But it's probably difficult to do and most people likely don't care anyway.Regarding the edition of the Eclogues at hand, the one translated by David Ferry and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, I will only say that the translation is very, very good. Ferry has clearly read his Virgil carefully and draws over into English some of Virgil's excellences, which is to say that Ferry is a good poet himself. Even though I haven't studied Latin formally, I like having the Latin en face since so much of Latin is transparent to even an ignorant one such as I am.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

These poems provide the foundation for a definition of pastoral. Virgil's book contains ten pieces, each called not an idyll but an eclogue, populated by and large with herdsmen imagined conversing and singing in largely rural settings, whether suffering or embracing revolutionary change or happy or unhappy love. The eclogues, written under the patronage of Maecenas highlight individual characters like Corydon and Alexis. In David Ferry's beautiful translation they come alive in a contemporary idiom. As Michael Dirda has said, this is a "volume to buy, read , and treasure."

[joririchardson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Before the famous Greek author Virgil wrote "The Aeniad," he completed these ten pastoral works of poetry.I found these poems to be enjoyable to read and fairly easy to get through, but more often than not highly vague. The meaning or subject of the poems was not always apparent.Thus, I read the "Eclogues" again, this time aided by a study guide in the back of my edition. It proved to be extremely helpful, and I would definitely recommend that any reader use something similar.The language of this poetry is flowing and pretty, classical and intelligent, sensual, merry, and at times tragic.There are hints of divinities, love affairs, and even homosexuality in Eclogue II.The charmingly simple, yet nonetheless powerful, themes of these short poems focus on things such as shepherds, singing contests, sexual desire, twins, and soldiers.I enjoyed reading this book, but not as much as other poetry of the time period.Also look into - Sappho.