Literature

Ancient Greeks produced influential pieces of literature in philosophy, history, politics, science, and the arts.

Date: Eighth century b. c.e.,

Category: Literature

Summary The mysterious peoples who migrated into Greece and the eastern Mediterranean islands in prehistoric times spoke an Indo-European language with many non-Indo-European words. By the fourteenth century b. c.e. the Mycenaeans of Crete were using a script, now called Linear B, to record administrative business in an early form of Greek. However, this wealthy Minoan culture (named after the mythic King Minos) fell into decline, and with it, the art of writing lapsed for centuries.

At the beginning of the eighth century b. c.e., there was a rebirth of learning and the arts, among them the use of an alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians. It was then that the poet Homer, drawing on stories about the twelfth century b. c.e. Trojan War, composed the two most influential epics of the Western literary tradition. Preserving elements of the oral-formulaic style of their sources, the Iliad (c. 750 b. c.e.; English translation, 1611) recounts the fall of Troy to a confederation of Greek armies, and the Odyssey (c. 725 b. c.e.; English translation, 1614) follows the ten-year struggle of one band of warriors to return home to Greece. The Homeric epics, like the epics of India, became the basis for aristocratic education, teaching a code of conduct as well as presenting stories about the relations between humans and gods.

Philosophic discourse and scientific enquiry spread throughout the Hellenic world. Natural philosophers wrote treatises on physics (such as Archimedes, c. 287-212 b. c.e.), medicine (Hippocrates, c. 460-c. 370 b. c.e.), mathematics (Euclid, c. 330-c. 270 b. c.e.), and astronomy (Aristarchus of Samos, c. 310-c. 230 b. c.e.). The pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Protagoras (c. 485-c. 410 b. c.e.), did not only speculate about the nature of the universe; some of them, known as the Sophists, taught young men the practical art of rhetoric and wrote manuals systematizing their methods. Such

In the literary epic the Iliad, hlomer told the story of the fall of Troy.

In this engraving, the priest Laocoon and his sons lie dead behind the Trojan horse. (F. R. Niglutsch)

Education was needed in the city-states of Greece, above all in Athens, during the fifth and fourth centuries b. c.e. Athens was a democracy and depended upon public debates to set policy and settle disputes; accordingly, Athenians were litigious, contentious, and fond of ideas. The twenty-nine dialogues and Apologia Sokratous (399-390 b. c.e.; Apology, 1675) of the poet-philosopher Plato (c. 427-347 b. c.e.) re-create this atmosphere of debate in recounting how Socrates (c. 470-399 b. c.e.) guided the thinking of fellow citizens with penetrating questions designed to lead them to greater insight; the dialogues, taken together, are a philosophical saga, among the world’s finest prose works, and one of the two most influential philosophic

Oeuvres in the Western world. The other is the work of Plato’s younger contemporary, Aristotle (384-322 b. c.e.), who produced treatises on the sciences, politics, the arts, and ethics.

Greek philosophical discourse tended to grow abstract and unworldly, while in a contrary manner, the manuals on rhetoric tended to dwell on specific cases to the exclusion of general principles. To the Classical Greek mind, literature complemented philosophy and rhetoric by occupying a middle ground, enabling writers to present concrete stories in order to illustrate such important abstract concepts as the relation of the people to their society or to gods. The three great tragic dramatists, Aeschylus (525/524-456/455 b. c.e.), Sophocles (c. 496-c. 406 b. c.e.), and Euripides (c. 485-406 b. c.e.), as well as the comic dramatist Aristophanes (c. 450-c. 385 b. c.e.), created plays to be staged at public festivals for communal consideration. For private entertainment and edification, poets such as Sappho of Lesbos (c. 630-c. 568 b. c.e.) and Pindar (c. 518-c. 438 b. c.e.) wrote lyric andodic poetry. The Hellenic age also produced the first Western attempts to record and interpret the past on a large scale, particularly in the histories of Herodotus (c. 484-c. 425 b. c.e.), Thucydides (c. 459-c. 402 b. c.e.), and Xenophon (c. 431-c. 354 b. c.e.).

Significance Greek became the language of learning and commerce in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. In addition to the philosophers and historians at north African centers such as Alexandria, writers of the new Christian religion usually wrote in Greek. The twenty-seven books and four gospels of the New Testament of the Bible were written in koine, or common, Greek in the first century c. e. The books incorporate letters, sermons, histories, and prophetic writing.

Further Reading

Adrados, Francisco Rodriguez. A History of the Greek Language from Its Origins to the Present. Translated from the Spanish by Francisca Rojas del Canto. Boston: Brill, 2005.

Auroux, Sylvain, et al., eds. History of the Language Sciences: An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Study of Language from the Beginnings to the Present. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000.

Burnley, J. D. The History of the English Language: A Source Book. New York: Longman, 2000.

Chadwick, H. Munro, and N. Kershaw Chadwick. The Growth of Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. 2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Evans, Robert John Weston. The Language of History and the History of Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Fischer, Steven R. A History of Language. London: Reaktion Books, 1999.

Hock, Hans Henrich, and Brian D. Joseph. Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996.

Horrocks, Geoffrey C. Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers. New York: Longman, 1998.

Sihler, Andrew L. Language History: An Introduction. Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 2000.

Stevenson, Victor, ed. A World of Words: An Illustrated History of Western Languages. Rev. ed. New York: Sterling, 2000.

Trask, R. L., ed. The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000.

Trimpi, Wesley. Muses of One Mind: The Literary Analysis of Experience and Its Continuity. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Yunis, Harvey, ed. Written Texts and the Rise of Literature Culture in Ancient Greece. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Roger Smith

See also: Aeschylus; Alexandrian Library; Archimedes; Aristarchus of

Samos; Aristophanes; Aristotle; Athens; Bucolic Poetry; Elegaic Poetry;

Euclid; Euripides; Greek Anthology; Herodotus; Hippocrates; Historiography; Homer; Homeric Hymns; Iambic Poetry; Inscriptions; Language and

Dialects; Linear B; Lyric Poetry; Performing Arts; Philosophy; Pindar;

Plato; Pre-Socratic Philosophers; Protagoras; Sappho of Lesbos; Science;

Socrates; Sophists; Sophocles; Thucydides; Xenophon; Writing Systems.