Pan’s metapoetic role in Vergil’s Eclogues

Abstract

This article aims at providing a commentary on every mention of Pan in the Vergilian collection (Ecl. 2, 4, 5, 8 and 10) to illustrate his metapoetic role, which constitutes the feature of the god that is mostly highlighted by Vergil in the Eclogues. It is argued that Pan stands for the pastoral music/ poetry which the urban Alexis will enjoy by entering the country, he enables Vergil to broaden the limits of the pastoral genre, he represents the return of the pastoral music/ poetry in the countryside after Daphnis’s apotheosis and he defines the limits between pastoral and elegiac genre. Hence, Pan’s metapoetic dimension is highly important and fits well with the metapoetic status of the herdsmen and of the entire collection.