
Et in Arcadia Ego - chesterfield
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/15/et-in-arcadia-ego/
======
cafard
'Let me give you a parallel case: writing poetry in Latin, in England, in the
eighteenth century. Now, why would anyone do that. The mistake the modern
interpreter is almost certain to make lies in assuming that the eighteenth-
century literati must have done “X” for the same reasons we would do “X” now.'

In the first third of the 19th Century, Sidney Smith remarked that English
gentlemen spent the best years of their lives in making Latin verses. For the
gentlemen not yet of an age to leave school, the master's stick was a
considerable incentive.

------
ncmncm
Latin pastoral is not the only endangered form. This essay is a perfect
example of its own, certain to be resented by impatient readers here.

~~~
astazangasta
I loved it, but i have a soft spot for Arcadia and Virgil's eclogues.

