Mythological paradigms in the bucolic poetry of Theocritus

Abstract

Theocritus' treatment of myth has been discussed many times in the last few decades, particularly in connection with the non-bucolic ‘epyllia’. In this paper I will consider whether anything like what has been called the ‘Destruktion der Tradition’ applies to the bucolic idylls as well; my litmus test will be above all Theocritus' exploitation of mythological paradigms, because almost all the mythological stories which enter the shepherds' world areexempla. All theseexemplawill turn out to display either a certain or a possible ‘collapse of exemplarity’, because Theocritus more or less expressly focuses both on their exemplary and their opposite, non-exemplary aspects, which complicate and destroy the univocality usually typical of paradigms.