The Design of Virgil's Bucolics

Front Cover
Edizioni dell'Ateneo & Bizzarri, 1978 - Literary Collections - 258 pages

In 1986, reviewing recent work on the Bucolics, William S. Anderson wrote, 'Van Sickle, Design, has produced the most persuasive portrait of the Eclogues, arguing cogently for what he calls an "ideological order".' The Design of Virgil's Bucolics argues that Virgil composed his ten eclogues as parts of a system: the Book of Bucolics conceived as a concerted whole. The report of frequent theatre presentations showed that Virgil caught attention withdramatic flair, masking an ideological programme that grew to encompass motifs of a returning Golden Age and new myth, providing cover for the Caesarist regime, casting the poet as a prophet, vates, and laying groundwork for the Georgics and Aeneid.
Design argues, too, that ideology implied a poetic programme and that bucolic drama was metapoetic, starting with the discovery that already the first eclogue rewrote Theocritus with metapoetic point, despite the scholarly fad that styled Virgil's programme as Callimachean and postponed it to the sixth eclogue. Each eclogue in factmade a distinct contribution, the tenth complementing the newpolitical mythology of the first half book with the new myth of Arcadian poetics.
An extensive new Introduction to this second edition reviews developments and shortfalls in recent work on the Bucolics.

From inside the book

 

40 pages matching narrator in this book

Where's the rest of this book?

Results 1-3 of 40

Contents

Introduction to the Second Edition 2004
vii
Preface
9
A Chronology
17
Copyright

11 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

The Design of Virgil's Bucolics
John Van Sickle
Snippet view - 1978

Common terms and phrases

Aeneid allusion Amyntas Apollo Arcadian myth background bucolic foreground bucolic mode Callimachus Camenae carmina Catullus cited context contrast Corydon Damoetas Daphnis deus dramatic fiction E.ii E.iiii E.vi E.vii echoes eclogue book epic epos erotic Eurotas fifth eclogue figure force fourth eclogue Gallus genre georgic goatherd goats Greek growth hence hero heroic Hesiod hint Homer iambs Id.i Id.vii idea ideological iiii imagined implies language Leach locus Lucretius Lycidas Maenalus Meliboeus Menalcas middle ground mode of epos Moeris Mopsus Musae Muses narrative narrator nature omnia Orpheus Otis Pasiphaë passion pastoral persona piece poems poet poetics poetry Pöschl positive Putnam Quintilian recalls retrospect Roman Rome Schmidt second eclogue Servius seventh idyll Sicilian Silenus singer Skutsch song Soubiran structure style stylistic suggests thematic themes Theocritean Theocritus Thyrsis Tityran bucolic Tityran mode Tityrus tradition uates Varro vatic verses viiii Virgil Virgilian

References to this book

About the author (1978)

John Van Sickle is a professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the Brooklyn College and Graduate School, City University of New York. He is the author of many Virgilian studies.

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Design of Virgil's Bucolics
BCP classic Latin and Greek texts in paperback
BCP paperback series
Bristol classical paperbacks
Volume 24 of Filologia e critica, ISSN 0071-4968
AuthorJohn Van Sickle
Edition2
PublisherEdizioni dell'Ateneo & Bizzarri, 1978
Original fromthe University of California
DigitizedFeb 28, 2008
ISBN1853996769, 9781853996764
Length258 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Literary Collections / Ancient & Classical
Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical
Literary Criticism / Poetry
Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / General
Poetry / General
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan