The Eclogues

Virgil's ten pastorals: singing shepherds, confiscated farms, and the invention of literary Arcadia.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Virgil

type

Pastoral poetry collection

era

Late Republic Rome (c. 37 BC)

language

Latin

verse form

Dactylic hexameter

cantos count

10

Core Principles & Analysis

• Ten poems, mostly dialogue, written amid land confiscations after the civil wars.
• Pollio, Gallus, and Virgil's own farm appear under pastoral names.
• It invented Arcadia as poetry's escape-landscape for two millennia.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Eclogues