Eclogue: A Definition

Eclogue (ek´log), a term usually applied to what Theocritus called idyls—short, highly finished poems, principally of a descriptive or pastoral kind, and in which the loves of shepherds and shepherdesses are described. Eclogues flourished among the ancients (Bucolics of Virgil), and, under the name of pastorals, were fashionable in the sixteenth century, Spenser's Shepherds' Calendar being a good example. They were revived in the eighteenth century by Pope.