Vergil’s Eclogues: A Study of the Greek and Roman Literary Sources

Between 42 and 39 BC, Vergil composed the first Latin pastoral collection, entitled Eclogues, and consisting of ten poems in the form in which it has come down to us. Vergil’s Eclogues represent the introduction of a new genre, the pastoral, to Latin literature, and recall the Hellenistic poet Theocritus who invented this genre. The fact that the Roman author inserts into the text elements from other Greek and Latin texts modifying them through innovations and changes (constitutes an attractive field of research. This book shows that Vergil’s dialogue with the earlier Greek and Latin tradition is not only typical of the way in which Latin literature was written in the 1st century BC; rather, it is also a dynamic literary method used to affect and define the character of each Eclogue.