Encyclopedia > Arcadia

  Article Content

Arcadia

Arcadia (Greek Αρκαδια) is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus that was named after Arcas and home, for a time, to Pan. According to Virgil, it was a land of pastoral simplicity.

The name has been used for any idyllic location or paradise; unlike utopia, it does not carry the connotation of a humanly designed civilization.

See also Golden Age, millennialism, Et in Arcadia Ego[?].


A region of Nova Scotia was known for some time as Acadia; its discoverer, Giovanni da Verrazano, was so impressed by the natural beauty of the region that he named it 'Archadia', after the Greek Arcadia.


Tom Stoppard has used the name as the title of a play (see Arcadia (play)). A 1980s pop band was also known as Arcadia.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Monty Woolley

... actor. Born Edgar Montillion Wooley in New York City, Woolley was a professor and lecturer at Yale University (one of his students was Thornton Wilder) who be ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 34.3 ms