'I have cast up my reading account, and brought it to the end of the year 1835. [?] During the last thirteen months I have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindar twice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritus twice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon?s works; almost all Plato; Aristotle?s Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besides dipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch?s Lives; about half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice; Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; Silius Italicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly, Cicero. I have, indeed, still a little of Cicero left; but I shall finish him in a few days. I am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'I have cast up my reading account, and brought it to the end of the year 1835. [?] During the last thirteen months I have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindar twice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritus twice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon?s works; almost all Plato; Aristotle?s Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besides dipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch?s Lives; about half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice; Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; Silius Italicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly, Cicero. I have, indeed, still a little of Cicero left; but I shall finish him in a few days. I am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
' "This is a very good Idyll. Indeed it is more pleasing to me than almost any other pastoral poem in any language. It was my favourite at College. There is a rich profusion of rustic imagery about it which I find nowhere else. It opens a scene of rural plenty and comfort which quite fills the imagination, - flowers, fruits, leaves, fountains, soft goatskins, old wine, singing birds, joyous friendly companions. The whole has an air of reality which is more interesting than the conventional world which Virgil has placed in Arcadia". So Macaulay characterises the Seventh Idyll of Theocritus.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'This week I have read a satire of Juvenal, some of Cicero's "De Officiis", part of Epictetus' Enchiridion, two cantos of Pulci, part of the Canti Carnascialeschi, and finished Manni's Veglie Piacevole, besides looking up various things in the classical antquities and peeping into Theocritus'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'I am reading Mill's Logic again, Theocritus still, and English History and Law'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'[in the past week I have read] part of 22nd Idyll of Theocritus, Sainte Beuve aloud to G. two evenings... Monday evening [was occupied] with looking through Dickson's Fallacies of the Faculty'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot Print: Book
'I no longer look upon Theocritus as a romantic writer; he has only given a plain image of the way of life amongst the peasants of his country; who, before oppression had reduced them to want, were, I suppose, all employed as the better sort of them are now. I don't doubt, had he been born a Briton, his [italics] Idylliums [italics] had been filled with descriptions of threshing and churning, both which are unknown here, the corn being all trod out by oxen; and butter (I speak it with sorrow) unheard of.'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
'Tis true they have no public places but the bagnios...I was three days ago at one of the finest in the town, and had the opportunity of seeing a Turksih bride recieved there, and all the ceremonies used on that occasion, which made me recollect the epithalamium of Helen, by Theocritus.'
Unknown
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1815, compiled by Mary Shelley. Only texts not referred to in journal entries are given separate database entries here]
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record of Shelley's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list.]
'Works of Theocritus Moschus &c - Greek
Prometheus of Eschylus - Greek
Works of Lucian - Greek
x Telemacho
La Nouvelle Heloise
x Blackwell's His. of the Court of August
De Natura Lucretius
Epistolae Plinii
Annals by Tacitus
Several of Plutarchs Lives - Greek
Germania of Tacitus
Memoires d'un Detenu
Histoire de la Revolution par Rabault and Lacretelle
Montaignes Essays
Tasso
Life of Cromwell
Lockes Essay
Political Justice
Lorenzo de Medicis
Coleridges Lay Sermon'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read a part of the 7 canto of Tasso - Livy - Montaigne and Eustace -S. reads Theocritus and Richard III aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Theocritus - & Henry VIII aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Theocritus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'He appears, from his early notes or memorandums in my possession, to have at various times attempted, or at least planned, a methodical course of study, according to computation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his attention steadily on something without, and prevented his mind from preying upon itself. Thus I find in his handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides' Tragedies, of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first six books of the Aeneid, of Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the books of Ovid's Metamorphosis, of some parts of Theocritus, and of the tenth satire of Juvenal; and a table, shewing at the rate of various numbers a day (I suppose verses to be read), what would be, in each case, the total amount in a week, month, and year'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'[from the 1780 Johnsoniana passed to boswell by Bennet Langton] Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; as to the pastoral part, Virgil is very evidently superiour. He wrote when there had been a larger influx of knowledge into the world than when Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in description, though living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of Nature, and more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the King of that country; which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and the battle is well related. Afterwards they carry off a woman, whose two brothers come to recover her, and expostulate with Castor and Pollux on their injustice; but they pay no regard to the brothers, and a battle ensues, where Castor and his brother are triumphant. Theocritus seems not to have seen that the brothers have the advantage in their argument over his Argonaut heroes. "The Sicilian Gossips" is a piece of merit.'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Letter 444. March, 31st, 1832:
"I think it may be better to write directly to yourself, on the subject you enquire about.
In Theocritus—καλα εργα—ὁσσα ισατι—χαιρε Αδωᾂν αγαπατε—Idyll:15. κατατριψοντι,
ακρεσπερον—Idyll:24. in Hesiod—κλυθι ιδων—εις ωπα εϊσκειν—Κρονιωνι ανακτι—works & days.
ὑιε αναξ—ἁμα εργον—ανεφαινετο εργον—ημερα ασσον—ωκεα Ιρις—Theogony.
I have not any complete edition of either Hesiod or Theocritus; and would not write to you by
today’s post, that I might have time to borrow them. Mr Deane however, to whom I sent, is
without either. Dalzel gives very copious extracts; & these I have examined,—but I cannot find
in them, ανηρ in the right position. I will try to procure the books somewhere else,—and if I
succeed, you shall hear again from me."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Print: Book
