"The eclogue is traditionally the form of city folk who dress up in smocks to praise the simple pains and pleasures of country life, so it's surprising that a poet so well versed in rural actuality should be willing to countenance it." — Jamie McKendrick; The Erotics of the Future; Independent on Sunday (London, UK); Apr 8, 2001.

A Potted History

I'd heard the term eclogue before - Eclogues was the title of Virgil's first three major works of poetry. They were on one of my lists to read, but somehow I'd never got around to these antique texts. Virgil drew on the Greek tradition - particularly the work of the Sicilian Theocritus who wrote poems set in ideal rural settings, called bucolics, and concerned iconic, often mythic tales about the interactions between gods and humans.

Virgil's Eclogues, however, are also concerned with revolutionary changes such as those he was living through in Rome (around 44-38 BC). Unlike Theocritus' poems, Virgil's works are concerned with the articulation of a new political mythos. Despite their serious and contemporary nature, Virgil's eclogues were also quite erotic. Virgil's eclogues were written to be performed for his Roman audiences, to great acclaim.

The modern eclogue is a poem, drawing down on the tradition started by Virgil, in a classical style with a pastoral or bucolic theme or subject. It no longer has to be a poem in which two shepherds converse, although dialogue - or at least implied dialogue - is still a feature of the form.

The first English-language eclogues were written in the 16th century by Alexander Barclay. Edmund Spenser wrote a cycle of twelve eclogues - one for each month of the year - The Shepheardes Calendar - late in the same century. Alexander Pope wrote a series of four eclogues - one for each season - two centuries later.

While perhaps not the most well-known or popular form, many poets have tried their hand at this challenging and engaging form, including Louis MacNeice, who wrote such poems as "Eclogue Between the Motherless" and "Eclogue from Iceland" and Seamus Heaney ("Bann Valley Eclogue"; "Glanmore Eclogue"). Traditionally, eclogues are framed as a dialogue between two or more speakers.

"Because the eclogues are such a highly stylized form of poetry, they constitute a formidable challenge to any translator. The odd-numbered poems are dialogues, the even-numbered have a single speaker. Virgil's fragrant, bee-loud rural setting is placid, and at first not much seems to be happening ..." — Robert Taylor; Virgil Puts Bite Into the Bucolic; The Boston Globe; Aug 3, 1999.

Further Reading

Read Mark Tredinnick's Red Moon Eclogue and Wingecarribee Eclogue in this issue of Perilous

Click here to read Virgil's Eclogues online at MIT.

Read Seamus Heaney's 'Bann Valley Eclogue' (and other poems from Electric Light) online here

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About the Author

n a bourke always wondered what an eclogue was. And now she knows, though she's not yet brave enough to try writing one. If you are, why not considering submitting your eclogue to us?

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