Greek literature

Literature of Greece, ancient and modern.

Ancient The Archaic period of ancient Greek literature (8th century-c. 480 BC) begins with Homer, reputed author of the epic narrative poems the Iliad and Odyssey, but there is evidence that parts of the Homeric epics embody an oral literary tradition going much further back into the past. Other heroic legends were handled a little later by the so-called cyclic poets, for example, Arctinus, but these are lost. Towards the end of the 8th century other literary forms began to appear: the didactic, instructional poetry of Hesiod, whose Works and Days deals with morals as they pertain to agricultural life, and the various kinds of lyric which flourished for two centuries, particularly in Ionia and the Aegean islands. Besides choral lyrics (Alcman, Stesichorus), there were elegiac (reflective and mournful) and iambic (pairs of syllables, unstressed followed by stressed) works (Archilochus, Mimnermus, Semonides of Amorgos, Solon, Theognis, Tyrtaeus); epigrams (Simonides of Ceos); table-songs (Terpander); and political lyrics (Alcaeus). This kind of poetry served also as a vehicle of moral ideas for Solon, Theognis, and Tyrtaeus, of invective for Archilochus, of ardent passion for Sappho, or of the merely elegant and affected as in Anacreon. At the very end of the Archaic period stands the first Greek historian, Hecataeus of Miletus, who wrote in prose.

During the classical period (c. 480-323 BC) lyric poetry reached its perfection with Pindar and Bacchylides. New literary genres appeared, especially in Athens, which for 150 years after the Persian Wars was the intellectual and artistic capital of the Greek world. Drama reached unsurpassed heights: tragedy with Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and comedy with Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes. In the second half of the 5th and most of the 4th centuries BC prose flowered in several forms, including history, philosophy, and speeches (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Demosthenes).

During the Hellenistic period (323-27 BC), after the death of Alexander the Great, Athens lost its superiority, but its philosophical schools continued to flourish with such teachers as Epicurus, Zeno of Citium, and Theophrastus, as also did comedy (Menander). The principal centres of Greek culture now were Antioch, Pergamum, Pella and, above all, the Ptolemaic court at Alexandria with its library which attracted poets and scientists alike. Alexandrian poetry revived some forms that had fallen into disuse: epic (Apollonius of Rhodes), didactic (Aratus), epigram and hymn (Callimachus). Herodas reintroduced mime, which had been first given literary form in the 5th century by Sophron. In this period also bucolic (pastoral) poetry begins with Theocritus. It was, moreover, an age of learning, notably in the field of philology (development of languages) and textual criticism, exemplified in the work of Aristophanes of Byzantium and Callimachus, and in that of mathematics and geography (Eratosthenes, Euclid). Most of the great names of the Hellenistic period belong to the 3rd century. From 150 BC the influence of Rome became progressively stronger, and the Greek narrative of its ascendancy is that of Polybius. The 1st century BC also saw the first Greek anthology of epigrams, compiled by Meleager, and the work of the Jewish writers Philo Judaeus and Josephus, and the New Testament writers.

In the Roman period (c. 27 BC-c. AD 330) the city of Rome became the capital of the civilized world, and Latin the literary language par excellence. However, Greek continued to be spoken throughout the Mediterranean basin, and the following writers were outstanding: Flavius Arrianus, Dion Cassius, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus on history; Epictetus, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius on ethics and related subjects; Strabo and Pausanias on geography; Ptolemy on astronomy; Galen on medicine; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Apollonius Dyscolus, Demetrius (author of On Style), and Longinus on grammar and literary criticism; Plotinus on neo-Platonism; and the theologians Clement and Origen on Christianity. The Roman period was also an age of compilers (Aelianus, Athenaeus, Diodorus Siculus). Rhetoric was represented by Aelius Aristides and moral satire by Lucian, while the novel appeared with Heliodorus (Theagenes and Charicleia).

For the Byzantine period (AD 330-1453) see Byzantine literature.

Modern After the fall of Constantinople, the Byzantine tradition was perpetuated in the classical Greek writing of, for example, the 15th-century chronicles of Cyprus, various historical works in the 16th and 17th centuries, and educational and theological works in the 18th century. The 17th and 18th centuries saw much controversy over whether to write in the Greek vernacular (dialect commonly spoken, known as Demotic), the classical language (Katharevousa), or the language of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Adamantios Korais (1748-1833), the first great modern writer, produced a compromise language; he was followed by the prose and drama writer and poet Aleksandros Rhangavis (‘Rangabe’) (1810-1892), and many others.

The 10th-century epic of Digenis Akritas is usually considered to mark the beginnings of modern Greek vernacular literature, and the Demotic was kept alive in the flourishing Cretan literature of the 16th and 17th centuries, in numerous popular songs, and in the Klephtic ballads of the 18th century. With independence in the 19th century the popular movement became prominent with the Ionian poet Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857), Andreas Kalvos (1796-1869), and others, and later with Iannis Psichari (1854-1929), short-story writer and dramatist, and the prose writer Alexandros Papadiamandis (1851-1911), who influenced many younger writers, for example Konstantinos Hatzopoulos (1868-1921), poet and essayist. After the 1920s, the novel began to emerge with Stratis Myrivilis (1892-1969) and Nikos Kazantzakis (1885-1957), author of Zorba the Greek (1946) and also a poet. There were also the Nobel-prize-winning poets George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis.