A review by msand3
The Eclogues of Virgil: A Translation by Virgil

4.0

Virgil’s first known collection owes a great deal to Theocritus, whose [b:Idylls|2455|Idylls|Theocritus|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1161044922s/2455.jpg|6444] are some of my favorite poems of the ancient world. In these these ten poems, Virgil merges realism and pastorale fantasy to celebrate song as a kind of catharsis. Virgil was writing in a world in turmoil, and like all great art that emerges from upheaval, The Eclogues both looks to the past and generates new ways of understanding current events through mythic forms. These are poems of longing, loss, and nostalgia that are rooted in the real-world problems of Romans. Many are poems that focus on exile, like Ovid and Horace (whose land was taken by Octavian), but from the perspective of shepherds with neither the influence, wealth, nor connections to recover from their loss. And so they find solace in their songs, which are the lasting, mythic expressions of their otherwise brief, ordinary lives.