Eclogue

An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics.

Overview

The form of the word "eclogue" in contemporary English developed from Middle English eclog, which came from Latin ecloga, which came from Greek eklogē (ἐκλογή) in the sense "selection, literary product" (which was only one of the meanings it had in Greek). The term was applied metaphorically to short writings in any genre, including parts of a poetic sequence or poetry book. The ancients referred to individual pieces in Virgil's Bucolica as eclogae, and the term was used by later Latin poets to refer to their own pastoral poetry, often in imitation of Virgil. The combination of Virgil's influence and the persistence of pastoral poetry through the Renaissance imposed "eclogues" as the accepted term for the genre. Later Roman poets who wrote eclogues include Calpurnius and Nemesianus.

Variations on a theme

In 1526, the Italian Renaissance poet Jacopo Sannazaro published his Eclogae Piscatoriae, replacing the traditional Virgilian shepherds with fishermen from the Bay of Naples. He was imitated by the English poet Phineas Fletcher in his Piscatorie Eclogs (1633). Another English poet, William Diaper, produced Nereides: or Sea-Eclogues in 1712. The speakers are sea-gods and sea-nymphs. By the early 18th century, the whole pastoral genre was ripe for parody. John Gay ridiculed the eclogues of Ambrose Philips in his Shepherd's Week and Mary Wortley Montagu wrote six "Town Eclogues", substituting the fashionable society of contemporary London for Virgil's rural Arcadia.

Eclogue 4

Eclogue 4, also known as the Fourth Eclogue is the name of a Latin poem by the Roman poet Virgil.

Part of his first major work, the Eclogues, the piece was written around 42 BC, during a time of temporary stability following the Treaty of Brundisium; it was later published in and around the years 39–38 BC. The work describes the birth of a boy, a supposed savior, who—once he is of age—will become divine and eventually rule over the world. The exact meaning of the poem is still up for debate. Earlier interpretations argued that the child was the hoped-for offspring of Marc Antony and Octavia the Younger. Modern interpretations tend to shy away from imagining the child as a specific person. Edwin Floyd, for example, argued that the child could be seen metaphorically as Virgil's poetry.

In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the poem was radically reinterpreted by Christians to be about the birth of Jesus Christ. Medieval scholars thus claimed that Virgil had somehow predicted Christ prior to his birth, and that Virgil therefore must have been a pre-Christian prophet. Notable individuals such as Constantine the Great, St. Augustine, Dante Alighieri, and Alexander Pope believed in this interpretation of the eclogue. Modern scholars by and large shy away from this interpretation, although Floyd does note that the poem contains elements of many disparate religious and mythological themes, and R. G. M. Nisbet concluded that it is likely that Virgil was indirectly inspired by the Hebrew Scriptures via Eastern oracles.