Idylls (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Theocritus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199552428 ISBN 13: 9780199552429

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2008

Synopsis

'Eucritus and I and pretty Amyntas turned aside
To the farm of Phrasidamus, where we sank down
With pleasure on deep-piled couches of sweet rushes,
And vine leaves freshly stripped from the bush.'

The Greek poet Theocritus of Syracuse (first half of the third century BC) was the inventor of 'bucolic' poetry. These vignettes of country life, centred on competitions in song and love, are the foundational poems of the western pastoral tradition. They were the principal model for Virgil in the Eclogues and their influence can be seen in the work of Petrarch and Milton. Although it is the pastoral poems for which he is chiefly famous, Theocritus also wrote hymns to the gods, brilliant mime depictions of everyday life, short narrative epics, epigrams, and encomia of the powerful. The great variety of his poems illustrates the rich and flourishing poetic culture of what was a golden age for Greek poetry.
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About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0199552428
• ISBN 13: 9780199552429
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 114