Theocritus (redirected from Theocrates)

Theocritus (thēŏk`rĭtəs), fl. c.270 B.C., Hellenistic Greek poet, b. Syracuse. The history of the pastoral begins with him, and in him the form seems to have reached its height. His poetic style is finished and at times artificial, but the bucolic characters in his idyls seem alive. Theocritus has been widely imitated (e.g., by such poets as Vergil and Spenser).

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Theocritus

(born c. 300, Syracuse, Sicily—died 260 BC) Greek poet. Little is known of his life. His surviving poems consist of bucolics and mimes, set in the country, and epics, lyrics, and epigrams, set in towns. The bucolics, his most characteristic and influential works, introduced the pastoral convention into poetry and were the sources of Virgil's Eclogues and much Renaissance poetry and drama. Theocritus's best-known idylls include Thyrsis, a lament for Daphnis, the shepherd poet of mythology, and Thalysia (“Harvest Festival”), which presents the poet's friends and rivals in the guise of rustics.

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Theocritus

?310--?250 bc, Greek poet, born in Syracuse. He wrote the first pastoral poems in Greek literature and was closely imitated by Virgil

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Theocritus

poet; rhapsodized over charm of rustic life. [Gk. Lit.: Brewer Dictionary, 813]

See : Pastoralism