Idylls 6 and 11: His Monstrous Materials

Theocritus’ cast of characters spans men and women, elite and non-elite, people and things, human and nonhuman nature. A focus on ‘herdsmen's lives’ as representative anecdote, or on the elite context of the poems’ composition, chooses but one firmly anthropocentric lens. A material-ecocritical reading, by contrast, has decentred the conventionally foregrounded male human protagonist and has given us a view of the margins, a view from below: a view that has clarified the dark undercurrents of pastoral poetry. Again and again in this book we have seen the rural idyll punctured by a menacing materiality. Harmony between man and nature is precarious and questioned as material agency moves to the fore. Not only does our foot hurt because we stubbed our toe on a stone, but it was the stone that did it. The landscape becomes agentic, threatening – monstrous. Where better to focus this reading than on Theocritus’ monster himself?

Polyphemus is the central character of both Idyll 6 and Idyll 11. The latter poem tells the story of Polyphemus’ love for the sea nymph Galatea. The Cyclops’ love song is framed by an address to the doctor Nikias, whom we have met in our reading of Idyll 28. The frame recommends song as a remedy for love while also being a symptom of it.