Arcadia (poem)

Arcadia is a pastoral poem written around 1480 by Jacopo Sannazaro and published in 1504 in Naples. Sannazaro's Arcadia influenced the literature of the 16th and 17th centuries (e.g., William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney,Marguerite de Navarre, Jorge de Montemayor, and John Milton).

Arcadia by Sannazaro could be considered a prosimetrum – a combination of prose and verse. The alternation of prose and verse is consistent, but each varies considerably. Many portions of the prose are merely descriptive. Others sections, especially in the second half of the poem, are more narrative. Like the prose, the poetry is varied with a number of different poetical forms, including frottola, barzelletta, madrigal, and canzona. Because of the pastoral subject and the sections in prose, Arcadia could also be considered an example of the Pastoral novel genre. Sannazaro can be considered the founder of this literary genre, another well known example is L'Astrée by Honoré d'Urfé.

The publication history of Arcadia has two phases. The first follows the tradition of manuscripts consisting of an introduction ("proemio") and ten units in prose and verse. Initially this literary collection was called Aeglogarum liber Arcadium inscriptus then Sannazaro decided to change the name to Libro pastorale nominato (intitulato) Arcadio.

Some years later Sannazaro modified the whole Arcadia again. The title became simply Arcadia and now consisted of a dedication, an introduction, twelve units of prose and verse, and an epilogue (A la Zampogna – To the bagpipes). Three eclogues (I, II and VI) were probably composed before Sannazaro planned to write Arcadia. They were modified and added to the Pastoral Novel. The first version of Arcadia with introduction and the ten units of prose and verse were completed towards the end of 1484. A flawed version was published in Venice in 1501 without the approval of the author. The same edition was reprinted by Bernardino da Vercelli in 1502. The second edition was completed by Sannazaro around 1495. This last version was published by Pietro Summonte, who was a humanist and member of the Accademia Pontaniana, in Naples in 1504.

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