Talk:Eclogues

message: 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)
thread_title:  Proper title for Virgil's first book 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Bucolics

message: 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)
thread_title: Re Van Sickle on Clausen's commentary

message: :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)
replies: text: From the above I was alerted by user:Deor (Deor (talk) 20:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

text: 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)
thread_title: Name merged back to Eclogues

message: Substituted at 14:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: If so, it would be nice to add that to the article.  mfc (talk) 08:41, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it known when these were written?