An idyll is a short poem depicting rustic or pastoral life, written in the tradition established by the Greek poet Theocritus. Unlike Homer's epic focus on heroes and warfare, Theocritus's idylls turned to small, intimate everyday scenes, and later poets in the form included Virgil, Catullus, Tasso, Leopardi, Tennyson, whose Idylls of the King borrowed the name for an Arthurian sequence, and Goethe, whose Hermann and Dorothea was also classed as an idyll.
Facts
Place of OriginAncient Greece, modeled on Theocritus's pastoral poems, the Idylls. 1 Notable ExampleAlfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, a later English imitation of the classical form. 1 Defining TraitTheocritus's idylls stay within a small, intimate world and describe scenes from everyday life, unlike Homer's engagement with heroes and warfare. 1 Sources
1. Idyll (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Lead section, second paragraph, second sentence
His idylls are limited to a small intimate world, and describe scenes from everyday life.
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is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus's short pastoral poems, the Idylls
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Later imitators include the Roman poets Virgil and Catullus, Italian poets Torquato Tasso, Sannazaro and Leopardi, the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Idylls of the King), and Nietzsche's Idylls from Messina.
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