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Just as contemporary artists sample music to invest their songs with cultural meaning, Vergil sampled Theocritus. Naomi Kaloudis suggests to better teach the complexities of Vergil’s Eclogues to undergraduate audiences, students should look more closely at the rhythms and lyrics of music popular.

Image courtesy of interviewee. August 15, 2024

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This video discusses a pedagogical study centered on Virgil's *Ecologues* (or *Eclogues*), a collection of pastoral poems written in the aftermath of the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, during a time of land confiscation and political unrest in Italy. The speaker reflects on how these poems recall earlier Greek bucolic poetry, emphasizing themes of unrequited love and the connection between human emotions and nature.

The study aims to create classroom activities for advanced Latin courses that help students engage with the original text, focusing on intertextuality, sound play, and the broader context of poetic traditions. The speaker highlights the importance of hearing the Latin poetry aloud to appreciate its meter and the intertextual connections with earlier works, such as those by Theocritus and Homer.

Students often struggle to grasp the significance of these ancient texts, viewing them as merely dated literature. However, by drawing parallels to contemporary music and the concept of sampling, students can better understand how Virgil and other poets communicated political and philosophical messages through their pastoral forms.

In a successful classroom trial of this approach, students connected modern songs with ancient poetry, illustrating how themes and structures persist across time and cultures. One student provided notable insights by comparing protest songs and their historical significance, demonstrating that the study effectively helped students grasp intertextuality and the relevance of Virgil's work today. Overall, the pedagogical approach was deemed a success in enhancing students' understanding of ancient poetry.

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Virgil wrote the Act logs.

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Um, they are short poems. There are 10 of them in all.

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And he wrote them just

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after the Battle of Philippi in 42, BCE, among a lot

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of unrest in the Italian countryside,

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when there was a series of land confiscations

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after the Battle of Philippi for veterans

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that had fought on the side of the winners,

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that being Octavia

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and Mark Anthony against the assassins of Julius Caesar.

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Um, and these e blogs are reaching back

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to a previous genre, the bucolic poetry,

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pastoral and Latin bucolic, commonly in Greek,

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but it's the, basically the same thing, of the Aquas

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who was writing in the third century, BCE

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and Alexandria, mostly under the patronage

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of Tal two Philadelphias

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and the bucolic poems like those of Virgil's Pastorals,

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the EC logs, were, you know, songs

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of the countryside, mostly songs of in theose

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of unrequited love that herdsman would sing of.

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And the song would bring them some type of peace, sometime

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of solace and the unrest that they are feeling

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because they have so much affection for whatever, them

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for country girl that they were, infatuated with

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during that song.

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Um, but in the guise of this kind of simple song

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of unrequited love

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is no a message in Theos.

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These messages could be political,

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they could be philosophical,

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they could be commentary on literary aesthetic,

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but all of these were its extreme interest to the audience

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and Alexandria at the time in which he is writing.

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So it seems very simple, the poetry of,

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the atos in the third century,

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however, he used it as a vehicle in order

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to make commentary on things of great interest, again,

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to those people that would be reading

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or listening out loud to his poems,

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which we could consider songs.

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And he was able to create meaning through

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what we would call generic experimentation.

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So he would look back on the, the epic poems of Homer,

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or he would look back on the didactic poetry of Hes It,

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or on the lyric poetry of Sias,

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or on the meek poems of the countryside,

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what we would call folk songs today,

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whether they be incantation, lamentation,

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or even just shepherd songs or seasonal songs.

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Um, this would be kind of the fodder for meaning

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that the awkward shows would use in order to make, you know,

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larger commentary on the society.

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And his characters within the fiction were extremely

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self-aware of, the kind of,

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of the conversation that they were having

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with one another and with the audience that would be reading

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or listening to the poetry that they are in.

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And this kind of self-awareness

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and the kind of simplicity of the countryside

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that Theose created in his bucolic poems

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Virgil picked up on in his ec logs.

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And what the ec logs are,

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are really translated specifically to selections.

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So he chose specific aspects of the aosis bucolic poetry

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in order to create what some, you know,

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the scholars consider the true origin

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of pastoral poem, pastoral song.

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So we see elements, for instance,

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in Theosis, we call it poems.

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We see herdsman singing in a meen competition,

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meaning in exchange with one another.

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We see also, songs of unreflected love.

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We see also a sympathetic nature where the landscape,

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the trees, the rivers, the water, the animals,

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domestic and wild of this kind of pastoral landscape seem

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to act strangely.

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And I lament and sympathize with the herdsman, you know,

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going through some type of suffering at that moment,

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whether it be for love or something else in Virgil's poetry.

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The Aquas did this as well.

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And another important, element of the Aquas is,

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we call it poems, is the Locust Ammos,

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which literally means a pleasant place.

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And in this locus, Amus

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and Theose, his herdsmen were able to find peace

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and, fused within his locus.

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Ames, Virgil, the,

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the harsh realities of his world that was going

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through political unrest, land confiscation.

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Virgil himself, his family was a family of small landholders

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outside of Mantua in Italy.

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Mm-hmm. His family too lost, land to

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that was being given to veterans

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after the Battle of Philippi.

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So he uses the Buca poetry of Theose,

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makes it his own in the Roman world,

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and he uses it as a vehicle

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to co make his own commentary on politics.

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One issue that we have

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with students reading the original text out loud,

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just kind of, they read it in translation.

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They take it home. You say, read a hundred verses

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of Virgil's e logs, come back the next day,

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let's translate it and discuss it.

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Often students kind of see this,

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you know, it's a dead language.

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It's not being used today. They need to find meaning.

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They need to find connection, they need to see

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that Virgil's Ec logs can be understood

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and appreciated as a continued conversation

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with the ancient poets

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and every poet that took up this genre as a medium as well,

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since Virgil, since the aqua tos

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before him, as a continued conversation with them.

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And in order to really understand the message of Virgil,

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the students need to understand how

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to read the act logs in totality.

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Not just reading it through site, looking through illusion,

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you know, he mentioned Titus,

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you know, what does that mean?

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Oh, he mentions, you know, we see illusion to the lament.

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What does that mean? Uh, they also need

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to hear it out loud as well.

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So they need to understand that this is, you know,

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a complete text in the ancient world is heard as much

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as it is seen and bred.

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So they need to hear the meter, they need

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to hear the sound play and recognize that genre.

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It is one way that meter is used in,

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and it's a quantitative meter in Latin poetry.

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One way that this meter is used is to designate a genre.

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Okay? Fuller wrote in Dactylic Examiner,

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the opera shows wrote in Dactylic Examiner.

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Now Virgil is writing a Dactylic examiner.

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They're lifting the songs of these shepherds

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to a higher register when they are using Dactylic Examiner.

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And as well as we understand with the Aquas,

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what Virgil did is they were able to manipulate the meter

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in order to, reference earlier genre,

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whether it be Epic, whether it be a type

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of meek song like Lament.

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And they were able, again, to create meaning.

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But students need to actually hear this out loud,

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and they need to see the connections between genre between

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meter and how the ancient were able

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to manipulate the sound of their text in order to create,

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you know, to infuse

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and invest that poem with greater meaning.

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Um, so it's, it's something

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that is extremely foreign to them.

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So reading it out loud, understanding the meter, looking

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for a generic connection, looking for connection

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with the Quato.

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What was the Quato trying

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to do when he created the Lament in

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Italy, one with Daftness?

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How does that then infuse Virgil's Ello five in his,

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his own poetry?

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And so they can make connections between not only these two,

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writers of Lic song,

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but then also previous genre as well

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to find meaning in the whole of Virgil.

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And furthermore, not only is Meter something

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that is extremely foreign, so is the content itself.

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I know the first time that I read Virgil's Pastorals,

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I was like, what is this?

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Because I'm just reading poetry about two shepherds,

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you know, talking to one another

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in the countryside of Arcadia.

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And you know, saying, singing about how much, you know,

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abundance they have.

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I have so many sheep, I have so much cheese.

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I have acorns in, you know, a plenty.

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I love this girl, but she loves me not,

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I couldn't connect, you know, with what Virgil was trying

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to say with his pastorals.

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'cause I only saw the surface meaning of it.

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But when then we teach the students

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to look not only one at the sound play with meter

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and the sound of their language, but also at illusion.

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And to find more in that illusion

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to see true intertextuality, where there is a communication

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between two texts to enhance the meaning

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of the text, at the present form

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that is looking back on a previous, you know, author

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or source, that then students, you know, start to realize

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that it's not so simple that, you know,

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I can see more meaning in these shepherd song

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of unrequited love.

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Um, and so for students to kind of see that, you know,

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that, what the possibilities of,

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you know, analyzing Intertextuality

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and of analyzing, meter can give them, that's

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where this classroom activity came from.

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Because I wanted students, the goal of this project is

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to have students look at their own, you know,

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musical heritage, Virgil's for the purpose of the EC logs.

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His heritage was the Atos, the atos before him.

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His heritage was, for instance, Homer.

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Again, he see it, the Lyric and Maleek poets.

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But now in the 20th, 21st century,

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our students have their own language.

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They have their own cultural codes that they read in,

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you know, rhythm that they read in

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verse content in phrases that are picked up by previous,

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you know, singers previous works,

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that their favorite artist, you know,

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singer is looking back to.

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And when they further analyze their own

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taste in pop music

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and see what that source is looking back to

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and how that source is sampling is being sampled

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by their preferred artist,

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that it's actually intentional investment,

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it's meaningful investment,

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and they are able to understand more about the message of

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what their favorite artist is trying to communicate

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when they understand why.

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Did you know Lady Gaga pick up on this hook from Queen

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as I talk about,

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or why, Gwen Stefani,

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picked up on this verse again from Queen,

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another one Bites the Dust.

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What does that invest in the music of Lady Gaga

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and in, Gwen Stefani in order to create greater meaning

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for the student listening now to their songs with New ears.

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Today, we call it sampling, you know,

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an artist samples music from a previous generation or so.

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Basically it's the same thing happening in antiquity.

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Virgil was sampling Theos at Theore.

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Toasts was sampling Homer.

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Hes he at the Lyric poets, the Melet poets all

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to invest their own music, their own song,

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and poetry with greater meaning.

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And when students then can see, you know, how their own,

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you know, reality is in, is,

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in their lived experiences are, you know, better enhanced

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by the music that they're listening to, that they can,

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you know, maybe even relate more now to the songs

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that they like to listen to, then maybe they can step back

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and look at Virgil

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and say, okay, this isn't a song just about shepherds in

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love with nymphs that don't love them back.

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What is it that Virgil is trying to

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enhance in his own poetry when he considers, you know,

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the political message of Theos

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and then infuses his own locus ness of the EC logs

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with his political message of land confiscation?

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What does that give them?

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And you know, the, it's all about lived experiences

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and it, if a student can relate to sampling, you know,

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intertextuality, sound play, generic experimentation

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and antiquity, if they can understand

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that this is all the same thing, then maybe they can,

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you know, see greater meaning in just the text of Virgil

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and sit back

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and try to understand what he was trying to communicate.

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I wrote the article as a classroom activity,

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and I was then able to use it last semester in winter 2024

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with my own course.

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It happened to be an advanced ancient Greek,

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but we were reading Theose.

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So I was able to use the same, you know, activity I was able

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to add, you know, 'cause throughout the entire semester we

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would discuss, you know,

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what does this illusion in Theose mean when he,

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alludes back to the, poetic investment

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of he CID in I seven?

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What does this add to the characters

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that are being mentioned, in this, in this poem?

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Um, and so,

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and through Meter as well, he as well too,

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is writing in Dact Till Examiner

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and Theos would include, sound play that would,

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that would mimic, epic poetry,

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meek song like The Lament.

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We could think of the lament of Heba and, and drama K

14:31.795 --> 14:34.635
and Ese when they lamented the death

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of Hector at the end of the Iliad.

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We can also think of real

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and real life, the lament, what that would sound like.

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You know, the slow procession of the Dirge Theose was able

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to manipulate the IC examiner

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and the sound of his own breath

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Language to, to mimic this, style

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of song and what did that mean?

14:58.745 --> 15:02.005
And so we talked about this type of, again, sampling,

15:02.705 --> 15:05.925
intertextuality sound play generic experimentation

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throughout the semester,

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and what was the greater meaning,

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whether it be literary theory or political

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or philosophical in his poems.

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And I asked the students to do the same project

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that I was talking about earlier with Virgil,

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and it went very well.

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Um, one student, even at the end of the class when all

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of the projects were done

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and we had discussed, okay, well

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what did we learn from this?

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When you brought in your song

15:34.635 --> 15:36.415
and then you explained to the class

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after you played it for us

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and read us the lyrics that were being sampled

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or the sound, the rhythm, the beat that was being sampled,

15:44.035 --> 15:47.335
how did that enhance your song that you chose?

15:48.035 --> 15:49.775
Um, what was the message

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and how does that relate back

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to Theose in his own ancient form of quote unquote sampling?

15:57.195 --> 16:01.255
And one student said, you know, now I finally understand

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what Intertextuality is because, you know,

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before they're seeing it as, you know, it's illusion,

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okay, what do I care?

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You know, they're, they're, they're mentioning Homer.

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Everybody mentions Homer in the ancient world, so

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what does that mean to me?

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But they were able to come in with their, their songs

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by like Beyonce, by Shawn Mendez,

16:23.675 --> 16:25.375
by Hozier

16:25.475 --> 16:28.855
and by a series of artists I had never even heard of before.

16:29.315 --> 16:31.135
But it was wonderful because I got

16:31.135 --> 16:33.775
to know more about my students when I kind of saw

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what their kind of favorite music was

16:35.915 --> 16:38.975
and what themes they themselves were being drawn to.

16:39.915 --> 16:42.855
And they were able to then research those songs

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and to see, well, what is this sampling?

16:44.845 --> 16:48.015
Because we hear about sampling a lot in pop music today.

16:48.245 --> 16:52.255
Well, what is it actually doing for these artists that are,

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that are taking part in the sampling culture

16:56.555 --> 16:57.855
of modern day pop music?

16:59.035 --> 17:02.615
Um, and this one student, the one that goes,

17:02.715 --> 17:05.495
now I finally understand what Intertextuality is,

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did this wonderful project on Hozier was the song,

17:11.115 --> 17:14.175
and they had written a song,

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what was the name of that song?

17:16.045 --> 17:20.815
Nina Cried Power in 19 and Excuse me, in 2018.

17:21.715 --> 17:24.855
And this was a song about, you know, protest songs.

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This was a song about, you know, a universal,

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like a universalizing commentary on the

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inequities of society.

17:34.555 --> 17:36.495
Um, it was something, you know,

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that reached all the way back to the 19, you know, to the,

17:39.595 --> 17:41.175
you know, the early 20th centuries

17:41.195 --> 17:43.175
and the, you know, the protest song itself,

17:43.545 --> 17:45.975
which is a folk song, something that the Aqua Toasts

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and Virgil before, and Virgil

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as well would be looking back on through Theose.

17:50.465 --> 17:53.885
But that Hozier was then sampling,

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Nina Simone writing in 1965,

17:57.625 --> 17:59.365
her own song called Centerman.

17:59.745 --> 18:01.685
And through content and through theme,

18:02.555 --> 18:06.325
this student had realized that, you know, the, the

18:06.745 --> 18:11.685
how long of a struggle, you know, inequality has been,

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and have realized the grave importance of Hozier song

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to the protest song, you know,

18:18.115 --> 18:21.765
that they are singing about in the 20, in the year, 2018.

18:22.705 --> 18:26.805
Um, and they were able then to connect this kind

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of generic experimentation with previous generations

18:31.675 --> 18:35.485
form of protest, which by the way, went from a protest song

18:35.485 --> 18:38.445
through Nina Simone, which was this kind of bluesy melody

18:39.195 --> 18:41.365
into hozier, which is something completely different.

18:42.145 --> 18:45.645
But being able to follow this theme through Intertextuality

18:46.705 --> 18:51.165
and then to make a comparison, which was super important

18:51.185 --> 18:53.925
for the students back to Theos,

18:54.725 --> 18:56.745
it was a political commentary for Hozier.

18:57.715 --> 19:00.705
Theos too made political commentaries as well, you know,

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and the guise of all

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of these shepherds singing these love songs

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and in the guise of the Locus amness, which is supposed

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to bring peace and relaxation to those who are singing it

19:13.085 --> 19:15.625
and being a part of this locus amness.

19:16.405 --> 19:19.505
And the student had brought up, you know, it'll 22,

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which happens to be, in one critical reading

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of the text, about, you know, being critical

19:27.805 --> 19:32.705
of this kind of policy of the Tese, of just kind of,

19:32.805 --> 19:36.145
you know, spreading Greek culture as Greek culture

19:36.205 --> 19:38.705
as being the best culture that there is.

19:39.485 --> 19:44.305
And so I 22 has, you know, this epic character

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of Ali Duces.

19:46.525 --> 19:50.545
Um, so bringing this epic world into the locus ammo

19:51.205 --> 19:54.865
coming by ship ashore to a quote unquote barbarian land

19:55.435 --> 19:57.185
where he meets a king.

19:57.645 --> 19:59.065
He is a barbarian king,

19:59.105 --> 20:01.905
and he's depicted as being rough uncivilized,

20:02.325 --> 20:04.865
but he is at peace in his locus.

20:05.155 --> 20:08.625
Ammos and it's poly do see this epic character

20:08.765 --> 20:11.585
of Greek content that comes to this.

20:11.585 --> 20:13.185
So-called Barbarian's Land

20:13.685 --> 20:18.225
and acts as the colonizer trying to bring, you know,

20:18.355 --> 20:22.385
Greek values to what is not important to, again,

20:22.385 --> 20:27.145
this quote unquote, uncivilized peoples Paul duces expects

20:27.545 --> 20:30.545
hospitality something of great importance to the epic world,

20:30.845 --> 20:32.865
but Amicus refuses to give it

20:32.865 --> 20:34.305
because he doesn't understand it

20:34.305 --> 20:36.825
and doesn't think it's necessary to be part of his culture.

20:37.925 --> 20:42.805
So, as you know, there was, the student was able

20:42.805 --> 20:45.725
to find political resonance through the generations,

20:45.725 --> 20:50.045
through Intertextuality from the protest song to Theia song

20:50.145 --> 20:52.245
to Hozier in 2018.

20:52.955 --> 20:57.405
This student then compared this back to Theos, who was,

20:57.865 --> 21:00.645
you know, among a beautiful locus amoena of abundance,

21:01.035 --> 21:04.085
finding political commentary on the Greek world

21:04.155 --> 21:07.605
that he was living in at that moment in Hellistic Alexandria

21:08.655 --> 21:09.765
under the ies.

21:11.185 --> 21:13.805
So I would say it was extremely successful

21:14.105 --> 21:17.165
for those students to be able to understand, you know,

21:17.235 --> 21:21.445
what Intertextuality is, what generic experimentation is.

21:21.875 --> 21:25.885
It's just sampling of ancient song and genre.

"Virgil's Eclogues: A Reflection of Bucolic Poetry and Political Commentary"

00:00:00 - Virgil wrote the Act logs. they are short poems. There are 10 of them in all. And he wrote them just after the Battle of Philippi in 42, BCE, among a lot of unrest in the Italian countryside, when there was a series of land confiscations after the Battle of Philippi for veterans that had fought on the side of the winners, that being Octavia and Mark Anthony against the assassins of Julius Caesar. and these e blogs are reaching back to a previous genre, the bucolic poetry, pastoral and Latin bucolic, commonly in Greek,
00:00:46 - who was writing in the third century, BCE and Alexandria, mostly under the patronage of Tal two Philadelphias and the bucolic poems like those of Virgil's Pastorals, the EC logs, were, you know, songs of the countryside, mostly songs of in theose of unrequited love that herdsman would sing of. And the song would bring them some type of peace, sometime of solace and the unrest that they are feeling because they have so much affection for whatever, them
00:01:26 - during that song. but in the guise of this kind of simple song of unrequited love is no a message in Theos. These messages could be political, they could be philosophical, they could be commentary on literary aesthetic, but all of these were its extreme interest to the audience and Alexandria at the time in which he is writing. So it seems very simple, the poetry of, the atos in the third century, however, he used it as a vehicle in order to make commentary on things of great interest, again,
00:02:06 - or listening out loud to his poems, which we could consider songs. And he was able to create meaning through what we would call generic experimentation. So he would look back on the, the epic poems of Homer, or he would look back on the didactic poetry of Hes It, or on the lyric poetry of Sias, or on the meek poems of the countryside, what we would call folk songs today, whether they be incantation, lamentation, or even just shepherd songs or seasonal songs. this would be kind of the fodder for meaning that the awkward shows would use in order to make, you know,
00:02:49 - And his characters within the fiction were extremely self-aware of, the kind of, of the conversation that they were having with one another and with the audience that would be reading or listening to the poetry that they are in. And this kind of self-awareness and the kind of simplicity of the countryside that Theose created in his bucolic poems Virgil picked up on in his ec logs. And what the ec logs are, are really translated specifically to selections. So he chose specific aspects of the aosis bucolic poetry
00:03:31 - the scholars consider the true origin of pastoral poem, pastoral song. So we see elements, for instance, in Theosis, we call it poems. We see herdsman singing in a meen competition, meaning in exchange with one another. We see also, songs of unreflected love. We see also a sympathetic nature where the landscape, the trees, the rivers, the water, the animals, domestic and wild of this kind of pastoral landscape seem to act strangely. And I lament and sympathize with the herdsman, you know,

"Exploring the Intersection of Bucolic Poetry and Political Commentary in Virgil's Eclogues"

00:04:13 - whether it be for love or something else in Virgil's poetry. The Aquas did this as well. And another important, element of the Aquas is, we call it poems, is the Locust Ammos, which literally means a pleasant place. And in this locus, Amus and Theose, his herdsmen were able to find peace and, fused within his locus. Ames, Virgil, the, the harsh realities of his world that was going through political unrest, land confiscation. Virgil himself, his family was a family of small landholders
00:04:53 - Mm-hmm. His family too lost, land to that was being given to veterans after the Battle of Philippi. So he uses the Buca poetry of Theose, makes it his own in the Roman world, and he uses it as a vehicle to co make his own commentary on politics. One issue that we have with students reading the original text out loud, just kind of, they read it in translation. They take it home. You say, read a hundred verses of Virgil's e logs, come back the next day, let's translate it and discuss it. Often students kind of see this, you know, it's a dead language. It's not being used today. They need to find meaning.
00:05:37 - that Virgil's Ec logs can be understood and appreciated as a continued conversation with the ancient poets and every poet that took up this genre as a medium as well, since Virgil, since the aqua tos before him, as a continued conversation with them. And in order to really understand the message of Virgil, the students need to understand how to read the act logs in totality. Not just reading it through site, looking through illusion, you know, he mentioned Titus, you know, what does that mean? he mentions, you know, we see illusion to the lament. What does that mean? they also need
00:06:18 - So they need to understand that this is, you know, a complete text in the ancient world is heard as much as it is seen and bred. So they need to hear the meter, they need to hear the sound play and recognize that genre. It is one way that meter is used in, and it's a quantitative meter in Latin poetry. One way that this meter is used is to designate a genre. Okay? Fuller wrote in Dactylic Examiner, the opera shows wrote in Dactylic Examiner. Now Virgil is writing a Dactylic examiner. They're lifting the songs of these shepherds
00:07:01 - And as well as we understand with the Aquas, what Virgil did is they were able to manipulate the meter in order to, reference earlier genre, whether it be Epic, whether it be a type of meek song like Lament. And they were able, again, to create meaning. But students need to actually hear this out loud, and they need to see the connections between genre between meter and how the ancient were able to manipulate the sound of their text in order to create, you know, to infuse
00:07:42 - so it's, it's something that is extremely foreign to them. So reading it out loud, understanding the meter, looking for a generic connection, looking for connection with the Quato. What was the Quato trying to do when he created the Lament in Italy, one with Daftness? How does that then infuse Virgil's Ello five in his, his own poetry? And so they can make connections between not only these two, writers of Lic song, but then also previous genre as well to find meaning in the whole of Virgil.

"Bridging the Gap: Understanding Virgil's Pastorals Through Intertextuality and Modern Music"

00:08:21 - that is extremely foreign, so is the content itself. I know the first time that I read Virgil's Pastorals, I was like, what is this? Because I'm just reading poetry about two shepherds, you know, talking to one another in the countryside of Arcadia. And you know, saying, singing about how much, you know, abundance they have. I have so many sheep, I have so much cheese. I have acorns in, you know, a plenty. I love this girl, but she loves me not, I couldn't connect, you know, with what Virgil was trying to say with his pastorals.
00:09:02 - But when then we teach the students to look not only one at the sound play with meter and the sound of their language, but also at illusion. And to find more in that illusion to see true intertextuality, where there is a communication between two texts to enhance the meaning of the text, at the present form that is looking back on a previous, you know, author or source, that then students, you know, start to realize that it's not so simple that, you know, I can see more meaning in these shepherd song
00:09:41 - and so for students to kind of see that, you know, that, what the possibilities of, you know, analyzing Intertextuality and of analyzing, meter can give them, that's where this classroom activity came from. Because I wanted students, the goal of this project is to have students look at their own, you know, musical heritage, Virgil's for the purpose of the EC logs. His heritage was the Atos, the atos before him. His heritage was, for instance, Homer.
00:10:23 - But now in the 20th, 21st century, our students have their own language. They have their own cultural codes that they read in, you know, rhythm that they read in verse content in phrases that are picked up by previous, you know, singers previous works, that their favorite artist, you know, singer is looking back to. And when they further analyze their own taste in pop music and see what that source is looking back to and how that source is sampling is being sampled
00:11:05 - that it's actually intentional investment, it's meaningful investment, and they are able to understand more about the message of what their favorite artist is trying to communicate when they understand why. Did you know Lady Gaga pick up on this hook from Queen as I talk about, or why, Gwen Stefani, picked up on this verse again from Queen, another one Bites the Dust. What does that invest in the music of Lady Gaga and in, Gwen Stefani in order to create greater meaning
00:11:49 - Today, we call it sampling, you know, an artist samples music from a previous generation or so. Basically it's the same thing happening in antiquity. Virgil was sampling Theos at Theore. Toasts was sampling Homer. Hes he at the Lyric poets, the Melet poets all to invest their own music, their own song, and poetry with greater meaning. And when students then can see, you know, how their own, you know, reality is in, is, in their lived experiences are, you know, better enhanced

"Exploring Intertextuality and Meaning in Virgil's Eclogues Through Modern Music"

00:12:31 - you know, maybe even relate more now to the songs that they like to listen to, then maybe they can step back and look at Virgil and say, okay, this isn't a song just about shepherds in love with nymphs that don't love them back. What is it that Virgil is trying to enhance in his own poetry when he considers, you know, the political message of Theos and then infuses his own locus ness of the EC logs with his political message of land confiscation? What does that give them? And you know, the, it's all about lived experiences
00:13:14 - intertextuality, sound play, generic experimentation and antiquity, if they can understand that this is all the same thing, then maybe they can, you know, see greater meaning in just the text of Virgil and sit back and try to understand what he was trying to communicate. I wrote the article as a classroom activity, and I was then able to use it last semester in winter 2024 with my own course. It happened to be an advanced ancient Greek, but we were reading Theose. So I was able to use the same, you know, activity I was able
00:13:55 - would discuss, you know, what does this illusion in Theose mean when he, alludes back to the, poetic investment of he CID in I seven? What does this add to the characters that are being mentioned, in this, in this poem? and so, and through Meter as well, he as well too, is writing in Dact Till Examiner and Theos would include, sound play that would, that would mimic, epic poetry, meek song like The Lament. We could think of the lament of Heba and, and drama K and Ese when they lamented the death
00:14:37 - We can also think of real and real life, the lament, what that would sound like. You know, the slow procession of the Dirge Theose was able to manipulate the IC examiner and the sound of his own breath Language to, to mimic this, style of song and what did that mean? And so we talked about this type of, again, sampling, intertextuality sound play generic experimentation throughout the semester, and what was the greater meaning, whether it be literary theory or political or philosophical in his poems.
00:15:19 - that I was talking about earlier with Virgil, and it went very well. one student, even at the end of the class when all of the projects were done and we had discussed, okay, well what did we learn from this? When you brought in your song and then you explained to the class after you played it for us and read us the lyrics that were being sampled or the sound, the rhythm, the beat that was being sampled, how did that enhance your song that you chose? what was the message and how does that relate back to Theose in his own ancient form of quote unquote sampling?
00:16:01 - what Intertextuality is because, you know, before they're seeing it as, you know, it's illusion, okay, what do I care? You know, they're, they're, they're mentioning Homer. Everybody mentions Homer in the ancient world, so what does that mean to me? But they were able to come in with their, their songs by like Beyonce, by Shawn Mendez, by Hozier and by a series of artists I had never even heard of before. But it was wonderful because I got to know more about my students when I kind of saw what their kind of favorite music was and what themes they themselves were being drawn to.

"Intertextuality and Political Commentary: Tracing the Legacy of Protest Songs from Theocritus to Contemporary Music"

00:16:42 - and to see, well, what is this sampling? Because we hear about sampling a lot in pop music today. Well, what is it actually doing for these artists that are, that are taking part in the sampling culture of modern day pop music? and this one student, the one that goes, now I finally understand what Intertextuality is, did this wonderful project on Hozier was the song, and they had written a song, what was the name of that song? Nina Cried Power in 19 and Excuse me, in 2018.
00:17:25 - This was a song about, you know, a universal, like a universalizing commentary on the inequities of society. it was something, you know, that reached all the way back to the 19, you know, to the, you know, the early 20th centuries and the, you know, the protest song itself, which is a folk song, something that the Aqua Toasts and Virgil before, and Virgil as well would be looking back on through Theose. But that Hozier was then sampling, Nina Simone writing in 1965, her own song called Centerman. And through content and through theme,
00:18:06 - how long of a struggle, you know, inequality has been, and have realized the grave importance of Hozier song to the protest song, you know, that they are singing about in the 20, in the year, 2018. and they were able then to connect this kind of generic experimentation with previous generations form of protest, which by the way, went from a protest song through Nina Simone, which was this kind of bluesy melody into hozier, which is something completely different. But being able to follow this theme through Intertextuality
00:18:51 - for the students back to Theos, it was a political commentary for Hozier. Theos too made political commentaries as well, you know, and the guise of all of these shepherds singing these love songs and in the guise of the Locus amness, which is supposed to bring peace and relaxation to those who are singing it and being a part of this locus amness. And the student had brought up, you know, it'll 22, which happens to be, in one critical reading of the text, about, you know, being critical
00:19:32 - you know, spreading Greek culture as Greek culture as being the best culture that there is. And so I 22 has, you know, this epic character of Ali Duces. so bringing this epic world into the locus ammo coming by ship ashore to a quote unquote barbarian land where he meets a king. He is a barbarian king, and he's depicted as being rough uncivilized, but he is at peace in his locus. Ammos and it's poly do see this epic character
00:20:11 - So-called Barbarian's Land and acts as the colonizer trying to bring, you know, Greek values to what is not important to, again, this quote unquote, uncivilized peoples Paul duces expects hospitality something of great importance to the epic world, but Amicus refuses to give it because he doesn't understand it and doesn't think it's necessary to be part of his culture. So, as you know, there was, the student was able to find political resonance through the generations, through Intertextuality from the protest song to Theia song

"Exploring Intertextuality and Generic Experimentation: A Student's Insights from Theocritus to Modern Political Commentary"

00:21:21 - This student then compared this back to Theos, who was, you know, among a beautiful locus amoena of abundance, finding political commentary on the Greek world that he was living in at that moment in Hellistic Alexandria under the ies. So I would say it was extremely successful for those students to be able to understand, you know, what Intertextuality is, what generic experimentation is. It's just sampling of ancient song and genre.

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