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Theocritus
Theocritus
The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature
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2003
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© The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature 2003, originally published by Oxford University Press 2003. (Hide copyright information)
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Theocritus (
c.308–
c.240 bc), a native of Sicily who lived in Cos and Alexandria, was the most important of the Greek bucolic poets and the one who established for the
pastoral the formal characteristics, setting, and tone, which it was to retain for centuries. Theocritus wrote in the Doric dialect, and the difficulties this produced for his readers led to his comparative neglect during the Renaissance. Editions of his text did not appear in substantial numbers until the end of the 18th cent., and modern writers of pastoral from
Petrarch to
Pope tended rather to take
Virgil for a model. There was an anonymous translation of six of his idylls in 1588 and in 1684 Thomas Creche's English translation of all his works.
Dryden (whose preface praised Theocritus' ‘tenderness and naturalness’) contributed some stilted and artificial renderings to
Tonson's Miscellany. By the 19th cent. the vogue of the pastoral as a genre was at an end. Victorian imitators, such as
Tennyson in ‘The Lotos-Eaters’ (1833) delighted in the sensuality of Theocritus' world of pastoral delights.
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Spellbinding Performance: Poet as Witch in Theocritus' Second Idyll and Apollonius' Argonautica.
Magazine article from: Helios; 3/22/2001; ; 700+ words
; ...regarded as poet-figures: Simaetha in Theocritus' Idyll 2, and Medea in Apollonius' Argonaulica. Theocritus and Apollonius use the performing female...character usually taken to represent Theocritus within his poems is Simichidas in Idyll...
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 "The Racing Post (London, England)")
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Success proves to be bleeding obvious for Theocritus; BRIGHTON.(Sports)
Newspaper article from: The Racing Post (London, England); 5/23/2009; 668 words
; ...at Doncaster Sales who did not know Theocritus was a chronic bleeder when he stumped...winner. Simcock warned beforehand that Theocritus, a member of Dr Marwan Koukash's...overexert himself. Had he been beaten, Theocritus was due to be retired as a riding horse...
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Pastoral and the Poetics of Self-Contradiction: Theocritus to Marvell.
Magazine article from: Renaissance Quarterly; 6/22/1997; ; 700+ words
; ...heroic in order to make its claim (Theocritus); resolutely questioning its status...rather a series of interwoven essays on Theocritus and Virgil, sensitively attuned to...thoughtful advice about the importance of Theocritus to English pastoral. Finally, I would...
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Horse Racing: Fast ground to spark Theocritus revival; TRADING POST.(Sports)
Newspaper article from: The Racing Post (London, England); 5/21/2007; 700+ words
; ...that we can find so many negatives to put next to his name. Theocritus 3.20 Newton Abbot Back He had an outstanding chance at the...favourite runs a belowpar race for whatever reason, I think Theocritus has as good a chance as any to take advantage. At the forecast...
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Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.(author Virginia Woolf)(Critical Essay)
Magazine article from: The Explicator; 6/22/2002; ; 700+ words
; ...simplicity of the "Fourteenth Idyll" of Theocritus (c. 300-c. 260 ? BCE) for her...a laughable one" (Laughter 100). Theocritus's playfully bucolic fantasy leaps...novel and the ancient poem of the Greek Theocritus, one of the major figures of Alexandrian...
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Modern eclogues.(Critical Essay)
Magazine article from: TriQuarterly; 6/22/2003; ; 700+ words
; ...beginnings, in the pastoral poems of Theocritus and Virgil, these dialogues between...contemporaries (third century B.C.E.) Theocritus's "idylls" are self-consciously...aware modesty and sense of limitations. Theocritus's "bucolics" are more wide-ranging...
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The pastoral: first and last things.(Viewpoint essay)
Magazine article from: The Southern Review; 9/22/2006; ; 700+ words
; ...over those herds. The first collections of Theocritus's poems of which we know were called "Bucolics...usually refer to this work as the Idylls of Theocritus. And these poems of Theocritus gave rise to his great Latin imitator, Virgil...
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Grazing in the Ruins
Magazine article from: Parnassus : Poetry in Review; 1/1/2001; ; 700+ words
; ...but the Idylls of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. On these poems, which introduced...illiterate" poetry. Virgil's debt to Theocritus in the Eclogues is incalculable, and...Meliboeus and Titus, that are found in Theocritus too. How seriously Virgil wants us...
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Bouvardia looks well treated off 92; SPREAD BETTING.(Sports)
Newspaper article from: The Racing Post (London, England); 5/23/2009; 700 words
; ...season and could BETTING REPORT Theocritus on song THERE was plenty of early...for the David Simcock-trained Theocritus in the seller at Brighton yesterday...result would have been different. Theocritus should be avoided in handicaps...
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Seeing Double: Intercultural Politics in Ptolemaic Alexandria.(Book Review)
Magazine article from: The Journal of the American Oriental Society; 4/1/2004; ; 700+ words
; ...three Alexandrian poets (Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius) Stephens is able...chapter 2: Callimachean Theogonies), Theocritus (chapter 3: Theocritean Regencies...Hymn to Zeus and Hymn to Delos) and Theocritus (Idylls 17 [Heracliscus] and 24...
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Theocritus
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography
Theocritus The Greek author Theocritus (ca. 310-ca. 245 B.C.) is credited with being the first...nature and rural life. The best source for the biography of Theocritus is his own poems. He was a native of Syracuse who was familiar...
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pastoral
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...record was written by the Greek poet Theocritus in the 3d cent. BC It is in his idyls...and Amaryllis are first encountered. Theocritus was followed by Bion and Moschus in...employed the pastoral conventions of Theocritus and Vergil. Outstanding exceptions...
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Fascination
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology
...countries. In ancient Greece and Rome there is the example of Theocritus's wish that an old woman might be with him to avert this...deprive him of all power of speech; a fact yet earlier from Theocritus. The shadow of the hyaena produces the same effect upon a...
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idyl
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...intended as little selections in the style of such longer poems as elegies or epics. There are 10 famous idyls by the Greek Theocritus , and, since some of them dealt with pastoral or rural scenes, the term idyl came to be restricted to gently flowing, artistic...
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Virgil
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography
...songs of shepherds, all about 100 lines long, were written in hexameters and modeled on the pastoral poems, or Idylls, of Theocritus of Syracuse, a Greek poet of the early 3d century B.C. who created the genre. The poems are highly artificial and imitative...
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