Talk:Eclogues

Proper title for Virgil's first book

Difference & even dispute have emerged in two millennia over how Virgil's first work was & should be entitled. The present note suggests that the current WP article privileges the wrong term without explaining why it matters.

Two claimants have been most prominent— Bucolics & Eclogues: the latter looks to the form & textual status of the short poetic pieces, which were called eclogae by ancient commentators & perhaps even by the poet: a Greek term with technical applications, meaning variously in various semantic domains 'draft' or 'selection' or 'accounting' or 'part of a book'.
On the other hand, Bucolics derives from the Greek title for works by [Theocritus] who wrote short epic poems in which herdsmen are the main characters & called them Bucolica,, which may be translated roughly 'that pertain to care of cattle'.
Both titles entail metonymy: eclogue refers to formal status which is not unique to these poems while Bucolica refers both to the content & theme (herdsmen) & to the actual Greek model with which Virgil worked, hence the preference for it by distinguished scholars:

Since the title Bucolics, clearly credits Virgil's debt to The­o­cri­tus, use of Eclogues as a name for his book has been rightly called “unfortun­ate” by Don & Peta Fowler [Oxford Classical Dictionary (1999³) 1604a; Virgil’s use of The­o­cri­tus’ title also recognized by Richard Hunter, Theocritus A Selection (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 5.

Use of a concept —— ecloga —— that treats the ten compositions as separate parts has not kept poets from writing poetic sequences & poetry books modeled on Virgil, but the separatist prejudice has had a pernicious effect on scholarship: separatism occludes the fact that Virgil constructed a single book (unus liber as an ancient commentator calls it). A history of scholarship in this field from the latter part of the twentieth century to the present would record halting steps by scholars to get beyond dealing with ten separate pieces in order to articulate some form of order in the book (cf., e.g., Brian Breed, Pastoral Inscriptions (Duckworth 2006) 154-57; or John Van Sickle, The Design of Virgil's Bucolics (Bristol Classical Press 2004) 17-27. Sicelidas 02:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

John Dryden's translation of the Eclogues is entitled Pastorals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.31.32.30 (talk) 09:13, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Bucolics

John Lennard defines a bucolic as a poem on drunkenness primarily of classical origin in his glossary of The Poetry Handbook. He distinguishes bucolics from eclogues. Opinions on this? Gaylegoh (talk) 13:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I have major issues with this page. Throughout my schooling and degree I was taught that Vergil wrote the Eclogues, which were a series of poems in a Bucolic style. However in Wikipedia the articles titled bucolic and eclogue seem to loop around each other rather misleadingly. I believe that both articles may need rewriting, with a page dedicated to Vergil's Eclogues and another to Bucolic poetry.Olørin (talk) 20:20, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

More work of Sicelidas (see my response to your message at Talk:Virgil), who did a cut-and-paste move of this material from its original title, "Eclogues", and rewrote it. If you want to see his reasoning, its in the section above this one. Deor (talk) 20:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Re Van Sickle on Clausen's commentary

On Wikipedia, we don't normally include links to reviews of cited sources. In addition, there is a WP:COI problem with your repeated linking to a review written by you (instead of, for example, the review at the Bryn Mawr Classical Review), hosted on your own Web site. Please don't add the link again. Deor 19:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Name merged back to Eclogues

See above #Proper title for Virgil's first book

It would appear that Eclogues is more common than Bucolics in reliable sources (Google Books: "1,491 on Bucolics" and "3,440 on Eclogues"). Following Wikipedia Policy (WP:NC#Use the most easily recognized name is there any reason for not moving this page to Eclogues? --PBS (talk) 10:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

From the above I was alerted by user:Deor (Deor (talk) 20:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)) that the page rename had been done with a cut and past move. I checked and that was true. Whatever the pros and cons of the two options, 'page moves must not be made with cut and past moves (a tab move must be used (see WP:MOVE)) as it destroys the history of the article and that can lead to copyright problems. So I have merged the two histories together and placed the combined article under the name Eclogues as that was the original name and there was little discussion over renaming the page.

I have put no technical impediment in renaming this page to Bucolics, but I would suggest that if such a move is contemplated then a WP:RM request is made, as such a move would appear to be contrary to the Wikipedia naming conventions policy (See "Use the most easily recognized name" and the Google Book search above). --PBS (talk) 11:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Eclogues/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

from the standpoint of a veteran of forty years of scholarly attention to this topic, the WP entry seems singularly out of touch, as if drawing on older & conventional notions, yet the WP medium seems inhospitable to scholarly revision & discussion: in this case, it may be that the main article ought to be bifurcated: A) the consensus as of 1911 (11th edition of the Britannica); B) developments of the later 20th century until the present. If the WP proves unable to entertain scholarly revision, serious scholarship may be well advised to steer clear & steer students away. Sicelidas 20:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 20:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 14:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Is it known when these were written?

If so, it would be nice to add that to the article. mfc (talk) 08:41, 21 April 2021 (UTC)