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An idyll or idyl ( or ) (from Greek eidyllion, little picture) is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus
Theocritus

Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC....
's short pastoral
Pastoral

Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food....
 poems, the Idylls.






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William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 1905) the Shepherdess (1889)
An idyll or idyl ( or ) (from Greek eidyllion, little picture) is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus
Theocritus

Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC....
's short pastoral
Pastoral

Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food....
 poems, the Idylls. Later imitators included the Roman poets Virgil
Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
 and Catullus
Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His work remains widely studied, and continues to influence poetry and other forms of art....
, Italian poet Leopardi, and the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and remains one of the most popular English poets.Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, including "In the valley of Cauteretz", "Break, break, break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade ", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar"....
.

An idyll can also be a kind of painting, usually representing a pastor and his animals in a rural setting. They are depicted in a natural way, with the three components - man, animal and the environment - in a harmonious unity, preventing the picture from being either a landscape, or a genre, or just an image of an animal. Nature in this combination is presented in an unsophisticated, realistic fashion.

The subjects of such pictures are usually simple people living in uncivilised conditions, featuring naïvety in their thinking and yet leading a happy and cheerful life. The approach to the presentation is not humorous, but emotional, sometimes sentimental.

Examples:
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King
    Idylls of the King

    File:Idylls of the King 1.jpgIdylls of the King, published between 1856 and 1885, is a Literature cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, following the rise and fall of Arthur and...
  • William Wordsworth
    William Wordsworth

    William Wordsworth was a major England Romantic poetry poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
    , The Solitary Reaper
    The Solitary Reaper

    "The Solitary Reaper" is a ballad by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and one of his best-known works. In it, Wordsworth describes in the first person, present tense, how he is amazed and moved by a Scottish Highlands girl who sings as she reaps grain in a solitary field....
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    was a Germans writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters? and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, humanism and science....
    , Hermann and Dorothea
    Hermann and Dorothea

    Hermann and Dorothea is an 1798 epic poem by Germany writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....


See also


  • The Shepherdess (featured)
  • Bucolic
  • Et in Arcadia ego
    Et in Arcadia ego

    "Et in Arcadia ego" is a List of Latin phrases that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin . They are pastoral paintings depicting idealized shepherds from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb....
  • Arcadia (utopia)
    Arcadia (utopia)

    Arcadia refers to a Utopian vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Arcadia which dates to classical antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an idyllic vision of unspoiled wilderness....
  • Pastoral
    Pastoral

    Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food....