This collection, the result of a colloquium held in 2015, continues a series of volumes with similar titles that have appeared over the last three decades. For the most part, these other volumes study the ‘presence’ of Roman authors, such as Sallust, Lucretius, Catullus and Tacitus. Theocritus makes a great choice for such a collection since he is often decentred in favour of comparative or generic interests, although recent scholarship has given him more direct attention. The brief preface does not propose grand aims for the volume other than to reveal the ‘variété et … richesse poétiques de Théocrite’ (p. 8). The wide range of contributions achieves this goal.
In general, there is much here to confirm that Theocritus was a scholar-poet, who closely engaged with his literary predecessors and whose literature has had a deep influence on his literary successors. Several contributions also consider how Theocritus’ poems were experienced by reading or listening audiences. The 32 articles (nine in English, one in Spanish, the rest in French) range in size and scope. Some are quite long, while others are note-length. Some use multiple poems or groups of poems to support broad claims; others comment on a single poem or passage. Some utilise exhaustive bibliographies, others only a handful of relevant works. This bricolage of long and short pieces of diverse tones and content makes a fitting tribute to the Theocritean corpus. Because of the length of the volume, it will not be possible to comment on every chapter, but there is much of value here both in terms of new contributions and summaries of current scholarship. The volume's most significant contributions come in the fields of literary spatiality, gendered perspectives and Theocritus’ relationship to philosophy.
The volume falls into seven sections, but the bounty of material covered makes the divisions somewhat arbitrary. For example, V. Pace's study of female singers, ‘Singing Women in Theocritus: Magic, Genre and Gender in Idylls 2 and 15’, might have been included in the third section on female presences rather than in the first on modalities of the poetic voice. The fifth section, ‘Théocrite et ses devanciers’, cites only Plato and Apollonius Rhodius, while a fuller range of predecessors appears in the first section. The papers by F. Cairns and J. Pilipović in the fourth section (see below) could also be combined with those by A. Billault, ‘Les Idylles de Théocrite et le Phèdre de Platon’, and A. Testut-Prouha, ‘L’Idylle I, une réécriture philosophique du Phèdre?’, to form a separate section on the philosophical dimensions of Theocritus.
The first section, ‘Tonalités modales de la voix poétique’, is the longest at approximately 160 pages, and its contents are the most varied. Kossaifi's contribution, ‘La houlette de Mnémosyne. Écouter et transmettre le chant dans les Idylles bucoliques de Théocrite’, offers a new perspective on bucolic song by focusing not on the production of song but on its perception by an (intradiegetic) listening audience and its preservation through memory. The precariousness of listening and remembering also allows this study to account for the common bucolic motifs of loss and death. F. Daspet similarly focuses on perception in her study of the spaces of bucolic song, ‘Les lieux de chant dans les Idylles pastorales de Théocrite’. This article complements common observations about the idealisation of nature and the poetic construction of idyllic landscapes with precise attention to spatial details and their consequences. Daspet offers a new framework for reading pastoral pleasances by focusing on their ‘architecture’ in terms of volume, surfaces, and vertical and horizontal planes. (As a glance at the two titles suggests, this volume does not concern itself much with the difference between bucolic and pastoral. The terms are used mostly interchangeably depending on author preference.) H. Richer, whose dissertation is cited prominently in several articles, offers a close reading of the first fourteen lines of Idyll 4, ‘La IVe idylle de Théocrite est-elle une “idylle sur rien”?’. This study critiques the tendency of Anglo-American scholarship to focus on the poem's supposed quotidian realism, offering instead a reading that attends to the various ‘codes’ that determine a reader's expectations. The first fourteen lines of the poem both refer to these codes and continually negate them, with the result that the poem becomes an ‘idyll about nothing’. His reading is convincing, but left me wondering how it might be extended to the rest of the poem.
The second section, ‘Images, contexte et trivialisation’, features three very different approaches to situating Theocritus within some ‘real’ context. M. Papadopolou, ‘Poems from the World of Wool: Dress and Identity in Theocritus’ Idylls’, explicates the clothing items described in Theocritus’ poetry as elements of a lived reality. The other two articles in this section see reality in more literary terms. É. Prioux's study, ‘L’enargeia chez Théocrite: du modèle homérique à la réception des Idylles’, covers some familiar ground, but also offers new insights into the spatial dimensions of Idyll 1's famous ecphrasis of the cup. Much of this paper is spent discovering intertextual links and structural parallels between Theocritus, his models and his successors, including the ‘Tattoo Elegy’ (P. Brux. inv. E 8894 + P. Sorb. inv. 2254).
The third section, ‘Présences féminines’, is particularly welcome, especially the two studies of gendered violence in Idyll 14. A. Fountoulakis (‘Rethinking Gender Roles and Generic Identities: Sexual Jealousy in Theocritus, Id. 14 and Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 15 and 8’) appeals to social psychology to explain the poem's ‘ideal of hegemonic masculinity’ (p. 273) and its focus on ‘the fragility and problems of masculinity’ (p. 282) in contrast with Lucian's female-focused perspective. M.G. González Galván's short contribution, ‘Confidencias de amor y violencia (Teócrito, Id. XIV)’, explores how the poem normalises gendered violence and reminds us of how shockingly common such normalisation remains in the modern world. Cusset's overview of female voices in Theocritus, ‘Les voix féminines dans les Idylles de Théocrite: une question de genre?’, finds a fundamental opposition of gendered voices in the bucolic and so-called urban poems, but also points out many parallels and similarities in the way these gendered voices are articulated in the absence or elision of the other gender.
The fourth section, ‘Autour de quelques discours amoureux’, studies the amatory dimension of Theocritus’ poetry. Pilipović’s contribution, ‘Phármakon des Piérides. Vers l’érotologie de l’Idylle 11’, explores the semantic and philosophical implications of three key terms in Idyll 11: the ‘wound’ of love (ἕλκος, line 15), the ‘drug’ (ϕάρμακον, line 1) and ‘shepherding’ love (ποιμαίνειν, line 80). By carefully reading these words and their contexts, Pilipović arrives at a fresh conclusion despite tackling an issue that has been a major focus of previous scholarship. More impressively, she manages to frame her conclusions as a reflection on the genesis and purpose of the bucolic genre in general. M. Fantuzzi's study, ‘Theocritus’ shepherdly Eros’, explores the dimensions of eros in Theocritus’ pastoral and shows how Theocritus critiques the prevailing cultural ideas about eros from earlier literature. These two articles offer a nice overview of the literary and philosophical dimensions of eros in Theocritus’ pastoral poems. Cairns’ study of Peripatetic characters in Idyll 4, ‘Battus and Corydon in Theocritus Idyll 4’, seems somewhat out of place in this section as it only touches on eros obliquely. This reading also contradicts that of Richer from the first section, but it does offer a complete reading of the poem in question.
The fifth section, ‘Théocrite et ses devanciers’, includes the two articles on the relationship between Theocritus and Plato mentioned above. Both studies are more suggestive than they are conclusive, but this is generally the case when considering the relationship of Theocritus and Plato. B. Daniel-Muller offers a careful character study of Idyll 2's Simaitha and the Medea of Apollonius’ Argonautica, ‘Les Argonautiques d'Apollonios de Rhodes: un hypotexte méconnu de l’Idylle II de Théocrite?’, which sees the former as a critique of the latter. There are some compelling insights into this Idyll, particularly in the parallels drawn with the known intertextual relationship between Idylls 13 and 22 and the Argonautica. These conclusions would be stronger if the article also addressed recent concerns about the chronological priority of these two authors (J. Murray, ‘Anchored in Time. The Date in Apollonius’ Argonautica’, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker [edd.], Hellenistic Poetry in Context [2014], pp. 247–84; see also: A. Köhnken, ‘Hellenistic Chronology: Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius Rhodius’, in T. Papanghelis and A. Rengakos [edd.], A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius [2001], pp. 73–92).
The sixth section, ‘Les poètes augustéens et Théocrite’, offers several compelling studies of Virgil and Ovid as readers of Theocritus. These articles confirm that the Latin poets were both careful readers of Theocritus and virtuosic innovators. A. Kolde, ‘Le bétail bucolique, de Théocrite à Virgile’, provides a general thematic study of animals in Theocritus and Virgil, which surprisingly has not been undertaken before.
The final section, ‘Postérité de Théocrite au-delà de l'Antiquité’, studies the literary reception of Theocritus by audiences ranging from imperial Rome to the Renaissance and beyond. C. Longobardi, ‘Présence (et absence) de Théocrite dans les commentateurs latins tardifs’, makes a convincing case that the late Latin commentators did not actually read Theocritus in Greek, but instead repeated commonplaces about his characters and plots that they had read elsewhere. The other articles in this section provide an excellent overview of how Theocritus was read and interpreted throughout the centuries. Poignault's study, ‘Marguerite Yourcenar et Théocrite’, reveals the novelist's remarkable passion for and insight into Theocritus.
As a whole, this collection succeeds in revealing the many presences in and of Theocritus. The wide range of themes and periods covered makes it a virtual complement to the most recent handbook on Theocritus (M. Fantuzzi and T. Papanghelis [edd.], Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral [2006]). The absence of an index is regrettable, given the many overlaps and cross-references between papers. The book is well-produced on glossy paper and even includes some colour illustrations and charts in Prioux's chapter on enargeia. I spotted relatively few errors for such a large book, and these were mainly found in the bibliographies. Unfortunately, as I was reading the last section, the binding began to come unglued and some pages became partially detached. This is regrettable, as this book deserves to be consulted regularly by scholars of Theocritus and will need to withstand repeated use.
