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"Theocritus"
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Theocritus, Moschus, Bion
\"Theocritus (early third century BCE), born in Syracuse and also active on Cos and at Alexandria, was the inventor of the bucolic genre. Like his contemporary Callimachus, Theocritus was a learned poet who followed the aesthetic, developed a generation earlier by Philitas of Cos (LCL 508), of refashioning traditional literary forms in original ways through tightly organized and highly polished work on a small scale (thus the traditional generic title Idylls: \"little forms\"). Although Theocritus composed in a variety of genres or generic combinations, including encomium, epigram, hymn, mime, and epyllion, he is best known for the poems set in the countryside, mostly dialogues or song-contests, that combine lyric tone with epic meter and the Doric dialect of his native Sicily to create an idealized and evocatively described pastoral landscape, whose lovelorn inhabitants, presided over by the Nymphs, Pan, and Priapus, use song as a natural mode of expression. The bucolic/pastoral genre was developed by the second and third members of the Greek bucolic canon, Moschus (fl. mid second century BCE, also from Syracuse) and Bion (fl. some fifty years later, from Phlossa near Smyrna), and remained vital through Greco-Roman antiquity and into the modern era.\"-- Publisher description.
Book
HELLENISTIC REUSE OF AEOLIC METRES
Alexandrian poetry is mostly characterized by the metrical forms of the hexameter and the elegiac distich, but also provides evidence of experimental attempts to innovate formal aspects of rhythm and metre. Taking inspiration from the archaic tradition of monody and song-making, especially in the third century b.c. poets toyed with verse forms that allowed them to ‘widen the repertory’ of metres available for the composition of literary poems,1 using them in stichic forms, as markers of poetic expertise. This article explores some of these experiments and aims at unveiling the Hellenistic reuse of metres from the archaic tradition of lyric poetry (such as the greater asclepiad and the pherecratean) to evoke specific narrative tropes, thus generating literary associations through metre.
Journal Article
RIVER, GIANT AND HUBRIS: A NOTE ON VIRGIL, AENEID 8.330–2
Virgil has Evander trace the origins of the name of the river Tiber back to the death of a giant, called ‘Thybris’ (Aen. 8.330–2). This article argues that the reference to the violent (asper) giant can be understood as etymological wordplay on the Greek word hubris and as a potential allusion to the grammatical debate on the nature of aspiration. Varro's De gente populi Romani is identified as an important source for the characterization of the Tiber as a giant in primeval times. The political implications of the word hubris are also briefly explored with reference to various identities to which Evander alludes. The final part of the article argues that Theocritus’ Idyll 1 and the scholiast to Theocritus may have also inspired Virgil's description of the Tiber in this passage.
Journal Article
HORACE, ODES 3.13: INTERTEXTS AND INTERPRETATION
This article argues that the literary contexts of Horace's Odes 3.13, especially archaic Greek poetry, have been relatively neglected by scholars, who have focussed on identifying the location of the fons Bandusiae and on understanding the significance of the sustained description of the kid sacrifice. This study presents a more holistic interpretation of the ode by exploring Horace's interactions with previously unnoticed (Alcaeus, frr. 45 and 347) and underappreciated (Hes. Op. 582–96) archaic Greek poetic intertexts, which also offer a fresh perspective on earlier debates. Horace's use of Alcaeus’ fr. 45, a key intertext, firmly places the fons Bandusiae within the literary landscape of Horace's Sabine estate, and offers a structural and argumentative model for Odes 3.13; further, Alcaean and Hesiodic allusions also suggest that the kid is sacrificed as a surrogate for Horace for keeping him safe. These conclusions are used to offer a new interpretation of the ode on metapoetic, political and philosophical levels, and to explore how these different aspects of the ode interact with Horace's other odes.
Journal Article
ἴσκε in the Odyssey
Around 500 BC Simonides' epigram LXIX attests a semantic development to 'think or consider (to be); judge that; deem; fancy.' By the third century BC a different semantic development had taken place. Here, Dunkel examines the particles used in the Odyssey.
Journal Article
Victim of Eros: The Poetics of Sex in Theocritus' First Idyll
This article proposes a new interpretation of the \"sufferings of Daphnis\" as they are sung by the shepherd Thyrsis in Theocritus' first Idyll. While the common view is that Daphnis' wasting was caused by a stubborn commitment to fidelity or to chastity, this paper argues that it is rather a symptom of his sexual impairment. The argument rests on two main elements: the connections between Daphnis and other figures acting as Aphrodite's consorts, and the presence of lexical clues pointing to the sexual character of the cowherd's illness. Finally, I argue that Theocritus' enigmatic account of Daphnis' fate in the first Idyll is consistent with the pervading metapoetic discourse of the poem: impotence serves to highlight Daphnis' fecundity as the founder of bucolic song.
Journal Article
NICANDER'S HYMN TO ATTALUS: PERGAMENE PANEGYRIC
This paper looks beyond Ptolemaic Alexandria to consider the literary dynamics of another Hellenistic kingdom, Attalid Pergamon. I offer a detailed study of the fragmentary opening of Nicander's Hymn to Attalus (fr. 104 Gow–Schofield) in three sections. First, I consider its generic status and compare its encomiastic strategies with those of Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Idyll 17). Second, I analyse its learned reuse of the literary past and allusive engagement with scholarly debate. And finally, I explore how Nicander polemically strives against the precedent of the Ptolemaic Callimachus. The fragment offers us a rare glimpse into the post-Callimachean, international and agonistic world of Hellenistic poetics.
Journal Article
Irony and Metapoetics in Theocritus' Idyll 18
Abstract
Although scholarship has identified multiple ironic elements throughout Theocritus' Idyll 18, his epithalamium for Helen, this paper offers a new perspective on Theocritus' ambiguity, his allusive puns, and his ironic comparisons that masquerade as generic hymeneal topoi. Additionally, the embedded aetiology of Helen's tree-cult has long eluded interpretation. This paper proposes a metapoetic reading for the plane-tree and its arboreal inscription. As a mise en abyme, it forms a metatextual link between the imagined internal reader and the external audience to reflect on the power of the author and the text over the reader.
Journal Article
Well, I'm Back: Samwise Gamgee and the Future of Tolkien's Literary Pastoral
This article examines the treatment of the literary pastoral in The Lord of the Rings in order to demonstrate that Tolkien's pastoral, often considered a vestige of authorial nostalgia, is as forwardlooking as it is wistful. Through Samwise Gamgee and his connection to the Shire, Tolkien presents a pastoral that, though rooted in memory, is as mutable as nature itself - one that orients the reader forward and conveys that change is not only something to be accepted, but also embraced.
Journal Article