Elements of Irony in the Bucolic Works of Calpurnius Siculus

This bachelor's thesis focuses on the Latin bucolic poet Calpurnius Siculus and his collection of eclogues. Firstly, it summarizes the complex and hotly disputed topic of the dating of the author and his oeuvre. The thesis then offers a brief résumé of the primary arguments favouring the two main time frames: the Neronian times (1st century AD) and the 3rd century AD - the rule of Emperor Severus Alexander. The subsequent chapter details the formation and evolution of the bucolic genre and the lives of its two main representatives in Antiquity: Theocritus and Virgil, both of whom Calpurnius drew upon in his work. The following chapter contains a theoretic analysis of the term irony and of the means and ways it is expressed in a text. The thesis centres on an interpretation of select extracts from Calpurnius's work, focusing on irony and the methods of irony used by him