Product Information
'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.Product Identifiers
PublisherOxford University Press
ISBN-139780199552429
eBay Product ID (ePID)87227442
Product Key Features
Book TitleIdylls
AuthorTheocritus
FormatPaperback
LanguageEnglish
TopicPoetry
Publication Year2008
Dimensions
Item Height195mm
Item Width128mm
Additional Product Features
Title_AuthorTheocritus
Series TitleOxford World's Classics
Country/Region of ManufactureUnited Kingdom