Parthenope, The Interplay of Ideas in Vergilian BucolicThis study of the 'Eclogues' focusses on Vergil's exploration of issues relating to the subject of human happiness ('eudaimonia') - ideas that were the subject of robust debate in contemporary philosophical schools, including the community of âemigrâe Epicurean teachers and their Roman pupils located in the vicinity of Naples ("Parthenope"). The latent "interplay of ideas" implicit in the songs of the various poet-herdsmen centers on differing attitudes to acute misfortune and loss, particularly in the spheres of land dispossession and frustrated erotic desire. In the bucolic dystopia that Vergil constructs for his audience, the singers resort to different means of coping with the vagaries of fortune (tyche). This relatively neglected ethical dimension of the poems in the Bucolic collection receives a systematic treatment that provides a useful complement to the primarily aesthetic and socio-political approaches that have predominated in previous scholarship. |
Contents
The Poet as Thinker | 1 |
The Interplay of Ideas in Ecl 1 | 17 |
The Consolation of Poetry and Its Limitations Ecl 9 | 41 |
The Ontology of the Golden Age Ecl 4 | 63 |
The Interplay of Lament and Consolation in Ecl 5 | 79 |
Carmen et Amor Ecl 2 and 8 | 99 |
Chapter Seven Erotic Vicissitude Writ Large Ecl 6 | 121 |
The Critique of Elegiac amor Ecl 10 | 141 |
dulcis Parthenope | 163 |
| 171 | |
| 179 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeneid allusions Alphesiboeus Amaryllis amata amator amatory amor Apollo Arcadia Arcadian atque Bianor blessings boeus bucolic bucolic poetry carmen carmina Clausen cognoscere Coleman conception consolation context Corydon critique Damoetas Damon Daphnis death deus dialogue diction discourse divine Eclogues elegiac Epicurean Epicurean thought Epicurus erotic desire ethical eudaimonia exchange felicity figure fortune Galatea Gallus genre Georgics gods Golden Age Greek haec Horace human infelicity inter interplay of ideas labor lament leitmotif lines Lipka locus lover Lucretian Lucretius Lycidas Lycoris Maenalus Meliboeus Menalcas mihi modus Moeris Mopsus motif Muses narrative nature nobis notion nunc nymphs omnia passage passion pastoral performance persona Philodemus philosophical phrase pleasure poem poet poetic poets/herdsmen Pollio programmatic puer quae regard rhetorical shepherds Silenus sing singer song sub tegmine synechdoche tamen thematic theme Theocritean Theocritus tibi tion Tityrus topos umbra Varus Vergil Vergil's Vergilian bucolic vicissitude voluptas κα τν