SOURCE: An introduction to Vergil: “Eclogues”, Cambridge University Press, 1977, pp. 1-40.

In the following essay, Coleman identifies elements of Theocritus's pastoral poetry that would later influence Vergil and discusses the chronology and arrangement of the Eclogues. Coleman concludes his overview of the Eclogues by observing that although Vergil's range of themes is somewhat conventional, his details are almost entirely original, and his poetic technique is mature.

1. the Pastoral Before Vergil

The pastoral myth is the creation of a highly civilized urban sensibility. It is a reaction against certain aspects of the culture and material environment of the city: Musa illa rustica et pastoralis non forum modo uerum ipsam etiam urbem reformidat (Quint. 10.1.55). In his longing for a simple innocence and carefree spontaneity that he has lost urban man looks to the country and its way of life, which he knows only as an outsider and from a distance...