An eclogue is a type of poem written in a traditional style that focuses on rural or countryside themes. Poems in this category are sometimes referred to as bucolics. The word "eclogue" is also used to describe a type of music that aims to create the feeling of being in a pastoral setting.

Classical beginnings

The word "eclogue" in modern English comes from the Middle English word "eclog," which was borrowed from the Latin "ecloga," and that word came from the Greek "eklogē" (ἐκλογή), meaning "selection" or "literary work." This term was used to describe short writings in any style, such as parts of a poetry collection.

As a type of poetry, eclogues began with the Roman poet Virgil. He wrote ten poems called "Eclogae," which were inspired by the "Idylls" of the Greek poet Theocritus. These poems were also known as "Bucolica." They included dialogues about rural life, singing contests, and references to current events. Later Latin poets, such as Calpurnius Siculus and Nemesianus, used the term "eclogue" to describe their own pastoral poetry, often copying Virgil's style. Calpurnius used simple words from the countryside and old-fashioned phrases to create a sense of distance from the reader.

In Britain

The tradition of writing eclogues, which are poems in the form of dialogues between shepherds, was continued by 15th-century Italian humanists Baptista Mantuanus and Jacopo Sannazaro. Their Latin poetry influenced writers across Europe, including in England, during the Renaissance. However, the first Renaissance bucolic poem written in England was a 1497 eclogue in Latin by Johannes Opicius, which praised King Henry VII. This poem, written as a conversation between the shepherds Mopsus and Melibœus, celebrated the king for restoring a time of prosperity and safety. It was based on the first eclogue by Virgil, which praised Octavian, and the first eclogue by Calpurnius Siculus, which honored Emperor Nero. As far as is known, Opicius’s poem remained in manuscript form. Similarly, the first eclogues written in English by Alexander Barclay were not published until about 1514. These were created earlier and adapted from 15th-century Latin works by Mantuanus and Aeneas Silvius.

Edmund Spenser was influenced by Mantuanus’s eclogues, as well as by Virgil and Theocritus, when he wrote The Shepheardes Calendar (1579), a collection of twelve eclogues, each representing a month of the year. Each eclogue is titled Aegloga and features dialogues between different speakers discussing various topics. The style of Calpurnius is also visible in Spenser’s work, reflected in the use of old-fashioned language inspired by John Skelton and Geoffrey Chaucer. While the language appears simple, it includes references to current events, such as the planned marriage between the queen and a Catholic Frenchman. Spenser’s eclogues were early works, much like Alexander Pope’s Pastorals, which consist of four shepherd dialogues divided by the seasons. Pope originally wrote these in 1704 but published them in 1709. The 1717 edition included a "Discourse on Pastoral Poetry," in which Pope acknowledged the influence of Theocritus and Virgil, as well as Spenser.

Between these works, Phineas Fletcher wrote Piscatorie Eclogs (1633), which imitated Sannazaro’s earlier Eclogae Piscatoriae (1526). Fletcher’s poem replaced traditional shepherds with fishermen from the Bay of Naples. A century later, William Diaper continued this shift in subject matter with Nereides: or Sea-Eclogues (1712), where the speakers are sea-gods and sea-nymphs.

Variations on the theme

By the early 18th century, the pastoral genre was ready for a new beginning, and some writers began to use humor to imitate earlier works. John Gay made fun of the eclogues written by Ambrose Philips in his six "pastorals" called The Shepherd's Week. At the same time, other writers created "town eclogues," which focused on city life instead of rural settings. The first of these appeared in The Tatler in 1710, written by Jonathan Swift and his friends. John Gay later wrote three more town eclogues and a poem called The Espousal, which was a serious dialogue between two Quakers. Mary Wortley Montagu also wrote six town eclogues starting in 1715.

In Scotland, Allan Ramsay added a new element by using the Scots dialect in his two pastoral dialogues, Patie and Roger and Jenny and Meggy, published in 1723. He later expanded these into a pastoral drama called The Gentle Shepherd in 1724. Later, the eclogue genre was renewed by setting stories in distant places. William Collins wrote The Persian Eclogues in 1742, which was later revised as Oriental Eclogues in 1757. Thomas Chatterton followed with The African Eclogues in 1770, and Scott of Amwell wrote Oriental Eclogues in 1782, which were set in Arabia, Bengal, and Tang dynasty China.

In 1811, the Peninsular War inspired four Spanish Eclogues, including a poem mourning the death of the Marquis de la Romana, written under the name Hispanicus. A review at the time said these poems were modeled after Collins’s work. A decade later, a satirical "Irish eclogue" called Darby and Teague was written, describing a royal visit to Dublin. This work was attributed to William Russell Macdonald (1787–1854).

Musical genre

The term "eclogue" or similar terms was later used to describe pastoral music. The first important examples were piano pieces by the Czech composer Václav Tomášek. Nineteenth-century composers who used this title include Jan Václav Voříšek for piano; Franz Liszt, "Eglogue," the seventh piece in the first book of Années de Pèlerinage, published in 1842; César Franck, "Eglogue," Op. 3, 1842, as well as the eighth movement of the oratorio Ruth (1882), titled Églogue biblique, based on words by Alexandre Guillemin; Antonín Dvořák, "4 Eclogues for Piano," Op. 56, 1880; Vítězslav Novák, Eklogen, Op. 11 for piano, 1896; and Mel Bonis, "Eglogue" for piano, Op. 12, 1898.

Two additional solo piano pieces were created in the 20th century: Egon Wellesz's "4 Eclogues," Op. 11, 1912, and Jean Sibelius's Ekloge, the first of his "4 Lyric Pieces for Piano," Op. 74, 1914. Similar titles were used for the second and third movements of Igor Stravinsky's Duo Concertant ("Eclogue I" and "Eclogue II," 1932), and the middle movement of his three-movement Ode (1943) is also called "Eclogue." Gerald Finzi's "Eclogue" for piano and string orchestra, Op. 10, was revised in the 1940s and given that title at that time. An "Eclogue" for horn and strings by Maurice Blower was composed around the 1950s.