The Programmatic Idylls of Theocritus

Abstract

Scholars have consistently focused on Idylls 1 and 7 as ‘programmatic’ poems. Cairns, in his discussion of the first Idyll as a programmatic poem, helpfully defines such poetry as follows: A poem or part of a poem can be described as ‘programmatic’ if it is consciously composed in such a way that it contains a very high concentration of material typical of its literary form. Such a piece can be regarded as even more obviously programmatic if it contains statements about poetry and the art of writing poetry, either implicit or explicit. Such statements can sometimes involve evaluations of poetry or of several different kinds of poetry. Pieces which are ‘programmatic’ in one or more of these senses can sometimes use an agreed symbolic language. This chapter analyzes Idylls 1 and 7 from a comparable angle.