Idyll

 ( Genres Of Poetry ) 

An idyll (, ; ; occasionally spelled idyl in American English)

εἰδύλλιον, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus's short pastoral poems, the Idylls (Εἰδύλλια).

Unlike Homer, Theocritus did not engage in heroes and warfare. His idylls are limited to a small intimate world, and describe scenes from everyday life. 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. Goethe called his poem Hermann and Dorothea—which Schiller considered the very climax in Goethe's production—an idyll.Gjert Vestrheim: "Hellas som ideal", Antikken i ettertiden (s. 170-2), edited by Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 2009,

---

Terminology The term is used in music to refer generally to a work evocative of pastoral or rural life such as Edward MacDowell's Forest Idylls, and more specifically to a kind of French courtly entertainment ( divertissement) of the Baroque music where a pastoral poem was set to music, accompanied by ballet and singing. Examples of the latter are Lully's Idylle sur la Paix set to a text by Jean Racine, Charpentier’s idylle sur le retour de la santé du Roi H.489 and Henri Desmarets' Idylle sur la naissance du duc de Bourgogne set to a text by Antoinette Deshoulières.Randel, Don Michael (1999). "Idyll", The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Harvard University Press, p. 312 and passim. ; Sadie, Julie Anne (1998). Companion to Baroque Music. University of California Press, p. 53.

In the visual arts, an idyll is a painting depicting the same sort of subject matter to be found in idyllic poetry, often with rural or peasant life as its central theme. One of the earliest examples is the early 15th century Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.Hagen, Rose-Marie and Hagen, Rainer (2002) What Great Paintings Say, Volume 1. Taschen, p. 20. The genre was particularly popular in English paintings of the Victorian era.Treble, Rosemary (1989). "The Victorian picture of the country" in The Rural idyll (G. E. Mingay, ed.). Routledge, pp. 51–59.

---

See also

• Arcadia (utopia)
• Et in Arcadia ego
• Pastoral
• John Greenleaf Whittier,
• William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper
• Iyashikei

---

Further reading

• This contains a somewhat opinionated and selective view of the development of the form.

---

External links

Post Comment