Meliboeus Is Dead, Long Live Meliboeus: Confronting the Spectre of Crisis in Nemesianus’ Eclogue 1
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Nemesianus’ eclogues are an important witness to the development of classical culture, being the last extant collection of bucolic poems before the dramatic socio-political shifts of the fourth century. Within his reuse of Virgilian and Calpurnian characters, tropes and narrative structures, however, resides a consciousness of contemporary issues political, societal and cultural. In none of the third-century poet’s four eclogues is this more apparent than in his programmatic first. This article reads Nemesianus’ inaugural eclogue as a fictionalization of such concerns, analysing its thematic structure with a view to the poet’s historical context. Amidst the preoccupation with loss, senectitude and nostalgia, it becomes clear that Nemesianus intended his eclogues—with the first as its primary expression—to be a poetic response to the crises of his era, one which finds recourse not in hoping for a new political Golden Age but in the consolatory and preservative power of a poetry oriented towards—and reverent of—the past.
Source: The Classical Quarterly
Author: Fletcher Erskine
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4409208135