pastoral poetry, Latin
pastoral poetry, LatinLatin pastoral poetry is, in strict terms, represented by Virgil's ten eclogues, Calpurnius Siculus' seven, the two Einsiedeln eclogues, and Nemesianus' four. But pastoral (or ‘bucolic’) is often defined by theorists as a ‘mode’ rather than a genre, and, in this sense, one may speak of pastoral colouring or attitudes in Tibullus, Lucretius, the Culex, Dirae, and Lydia of the Appendix Vergiliana, Aeneid 8, and numerous other texts besides. It is unlikely that Virgil's contemporary Cornelius Gallus wrote pastoral elegies, although the tenth Eclogue has frequently been interpreted to that effect.
Among Latin pastoralists Virgil stands supreme. He significantly extended the boundaries of the genre which he had inherited from Theocritus, whose inspiration he...
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