World Literature

Ancient Greece
 Ancient Greek Literature
Homer (XII - VII centuries B.C.),

a blind minstrel presumably the author of

"Iliad" and "Odyssey"

 Trojan War
• The historic background of his
poems was the tenth year of
the Trojan War, the destruction
of Troy and Odysseus' 10-year
struggle to return home after
the Trojan War.
 “Iliad” by Homer
• the Song of Ilion (Troy)
• 24 books
• an ancient Greek epic poem
written in dactylic hexameter, also known as
("heroic hexameter") traditionally associated
with the quantitative meter of classical epic
poetry in both Greek and Latin poetry.
 “Illiad” by Homer
Achilles (Greek hero), Patrocles (his
friend), Odysseus (a legendary Greek king
of Ithaca), Agamemnon (king of Mycenae,
the Greek commander of troops)
 “Iliad” by Homer
• Helen of Troy, the wife of king Menelaus of
Sparta (Agamemnon’s brother) and young
Paris, Prince of Troy (son of King Priam)
love each other. So, Paris kidnaps her and
takes to Troy.

• loves
“Iliad” by Homer
• Helen's jilted husband
Menelaus convinces his
brother Agamemnon to
lead an expedition to
retrieve her.
• The king of Troy (Ilion),
Priam, father of Paris,
refused to give her as a
war-prize to the Greek
commander of troops,
king of Micenae -
Agamemnon.
Agamemnon
 “Iliad” by Homer
• In revenge the Greeks wanted
to conquer Ilion and, as they
were unable to do it
themselves, asked Achilles to
help them.
• Achilles refuses to help the
Greeks. However, when his
friend, Patroclus, is killed by
Hector, the son of Priam, and
the bravest warrior of the
Trojans, he changes his mind
and decides to help the Greeks.
 “Iliad” by Homer
• Greeks tricked the enemy into bringing
a colossal wooden horse within the walls
of Troy. The Trojans had no idea that
Greek soldiers under the command of
Odysseus were hidden inside.
 “Iliad” by Homer
• At night the soldiers emerged and opened
the city gates to the Greek army.
Troy was destroyed.
 City of Illion (Troy)
• Excavations by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870
near Anzac (Turkey) (left)
• Scene from the movie (right)

• Trojan horse is
a metaphor for some military trick
 “Odyssey” by Homer
• 24 books
 “Odyssey” by Homer
• Odysseus - a legendary Greek king of
Ithaca
• Penelope - the queen of Ithaca, known
for her fidelity to her husband Odysseus
• Telemachus - their son
 “Odyssey” by Homer
• "Odyssey" deals with Odysseus' s voyage
across the Mediterranean and his
adventures.
• The poem covers the epic of Odysseus'
10-year struggle to return home after the
Trojan War. While Odysseus battles with
mystical creatures and faces the wrath of
the gods, his wife Penelope and his son
Telemachus fight for the throne of Ithaca
with the suitors’ for her hand.
 Cyclops, Sirens & Calypso

• The Odyssey ends as Odysseus returns

home to Ithaca and wins a contest to prove
his identity, slaughters the suitors,
and retakes the throne of Ithaca.
Aesop (app. VII-VI century B.C)
Aesop was a Greek fabulist and
storyteller.
The only material proof of Aesop's
life is the statue erected after his
death to his memory at Athens, the
work of Lysippus, one of the most
famous of Greek sculptors.
 Aesop
• There are no contemporary to
Aesop written sources either
about his life or of his fables, all
that modern people know about
Aesop, is based on the
information maintained orally by
lots of generations, until
Maximus Planudes, a Greek
monk, scholar, translator, in the
early fourteenth century, wrote
those oral stories down.
 Aesop
• Later, in 1632, a Frenchman,
M. Claude Gaspard Bachet de
Mezeriac, who declined the
honor of being tutor to Louis XIII
of France, from his desire to
devote himself exclusively to
literature, Aesop's fables and
biography became available to
wide public.
• It is believed that Aesop has been born in
Phrygia about the year 620 B.C
• A slave by birth.
• His second and last master gave him his
liberty as a reward for his learning and wit.
• He traveled through many countries, and
among others came to Sardis, the capital
of Lydia, whose king was Croesus.
• He met at the court of Croesus with
famous sages.
• "The Phrygian has spoken better than
all."
• Aesop was employed by monarch in
difficult and delicate affairs of State.
• He visited different republics of
Greece.
• One of his ambassadorial
missions, to Delphi was the
occasion of his death.
• "The blood of Aesop" became a
well-known saying, meaning that
deeds of wrong would not pass
unpunished.
• Many writers and poets all over
the world used the plots of
Aesop's wise fables to write their
own literary works. Among them
are the French La Fontaine, the
Russian Krylov, the Georgian
Sulkhan Saba Orbeliani.
 Aesop’s fables
• “Unity” (The Bundle of Sticks)
• “The Ant and the Grasshopper”
• “The Dog in the Manger”
• “The Fox and the Crow”
 Ancient Greek drama

• Ancient Greek drama was based on

humanistic ideas and heroic pathos.
pathos
The Ancient Greek tragedians

• Aeschylus Sophocles Euripides

 Aeschylus (525-456 BC)
• an ancient Greek tragedian.
He is often described as the father of tragedy.
• Author of 90 tragedies, including “Prometheus
Bound”. Only seven of them were preserved till our
time.
• He glorified the victories of the young Athenian
democracy.
democracy
 Aeschylus
• Prometheus gave people the fire
possessed only by the gods and
was severely punished for that by
Zeus king of the Olympian gods,
who sentenced him to eternal torment
for his fault. The immortal was bound
to a rock, where each day an eagle
was sent to eat his liver, which would
then grow back overnight to be eaten
again.
 Aeschylus
• In ancient Greece,
the liver was often thought
to be the seat of human
emotions.
Prometheus was eventually
freed by the hero Heracles.
Prometheus is shared by several cultures in
the Caucasus region, served the basis of the
tragedy.
 Sophocles (497- 406 B.C.),
ancient Greek tragedian, author of
“Antigone” and other tragedies

He wrote over 120 plays, but only seven

have survived in a complete form.
• Sophocles was interested in
people's characters and destiny.
• The most famous tragedies of
Sophocles feature Oedipus
and Antigone: they are generally
known as the Theban plays.
• Oedipus was a mythical Greek king
of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek
mythology, Oedipus accidentally
fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up
killing his father and marrying his mother,
thereby bringing disaster to his city and
family. The story of Oedipus is the subject
of Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex,
which is followed in the narrative
sequence by Oedipus at Colonus
and then Antigone.
 “Antigone”
• In his famous tragedy "Antigone"
Sophocles tells us about a young
girl who is ready to die for her
brother.
• King Oedipus’s younger son Eteocles
announces himself the king and
sends his older brother Polyneices
to exile. The older brother fights
with him and they kill each other.
 “Antigone”, continued
• The new king, Creon, declares that Eteocles will
be buried and honored as a hero, while
Polyneices’s body will rot away and be eaten by
dogs in disgrace. Hearing this, Antigone (their
sister) insists that her brother's body must be
buried so that his spirit can rest in peace.
• Antigone goes to the battlefield and performs
burial rites, for which she and her younger sister
Ismene are sentenced to death from hunger in a
remote cave.
 “Antigone”, continued
• After a while Creon releases Ismene.
Though a prophet tells the king he will be
punished by gods for his deeds he does not
listen.
• Haemon, Creon's son, who is engaged to
Antigone and loves her, asks his father to
reconsider, but Creon grows angry. Haemon
rushes away, saying that Creon will never
see him again.
 “Antigone”, continued
• When the prophecies start to turn out
true, he changes his decision, but it’s
too late – Antigone hanged herself.
• When Creon arrives, Haemon attacks his
father with his sword and then uses the
weapon to kill himself.
• Eurydice, Creon’s wife, learning about the
death of their son, curses Creon and kills
herself. Creon is left a broken man.
 Euripides (app. 480-406 BC) was a
tragedian of classical Athens.
• He wrote ninety-five plays,
among them “Heracles” and
other tragedies, such as
“Medea” & “Electra”.
• His theatrical innovations
have profoundly influenced
drama, especially in the representation of
traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in
extraordinary circumstances. He was called "the most
tragic of poets“
poets for unhappy endings of his plays.
•
 Heracles
• One of the famous tragedies by Euripides is
"Heracles" (“Hercules”) or “The Madness of
Heracles”.
• In the centre of tragedy is the induced
madness of Heracles (Zeus’ son), the Greek
invincible hero, which led him to kill his own
wife and children.
children
• Heracles, who has inherited
god-like strength is doing his
labours.
 Heracles, continued
• Lycus, the unlawful ruler of Thebes,
is about to kill Amphitryon, Heracles’
mortal father as well as his wife
Megara and their three children
(because Megara is the daughter of
the lawful king of Thebes, Creon).
Heracles, however cannot help his
family, as he is engaged in the last
of his Twelve Labours, bringing back
the monster Cerberus who guards
the gates of Hades.
Hades
 Heracles, continued
• Though Heracles arrives in time to
save them, goddesses Iris and
Madness cause him to kill his wife and
children in a frenzy.
• Euripides showed how intrigues and
chance influence people's lives. The
invincible Heracles dies as the fate
willed so.
• The role of fate in Euripides's
tragedy "Hercules" is typical for
this playwright.
 Medea
• “Medea” is a tragedy by Euripides,
based on the myth of the Greek hero Jason
and his wife Medea, a former princess
of the "barbarian" kingdom of Colchis. Jason
leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth, so
Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering
Jason's new wife as well as her own children,
after which she escapes
to Athens to start a new
life.
 Electra

• “Electra“ is a tragedy by Euripides.

• It tells the tale of Electra (the daughter of
king Agamemnon and queen Clytemnestra)
Electra hates her mother for killing her father
Agamemnon and remarrying.
• Together with her brother, Orestes, they take
revenge on their mother.
• It was written quite late in Euripides‘ career.
 Aristophanes (V-IV c. B.C.)
• a comic playwright or comedy-writer
of ancient Athens and a poet of Old
Attic Comedy.
• Attic Greek is the Greek dialect of
the ancient city-state of Athens.
• Aristophanes is known as "The
Father of Comedy".
Comedy
• Eleven of his forty plays have
survived.
 Aristophanes
• Aristophanes’ comedies deal
with ordinary people and their
weaknesses.
• His comedy "Lisistrata" is a
comic story of a woman's
extraordinary mission to end
the Peloponnesian War
between Greek city states. It
tells about women’s riot
against men’s total power.
 Roman literature
• Roman literature mainly continued
the trends of Ancient Greek literature.
• The ancient Roman literature was written
in the Latin language.
• The earliest Roman literary works were
historical epics retelling Rome's early
military history, while the later works were
poetry, comedies, histories, and tragedies.
 Virgil (70-10 B.C.)
• an ancient Roman poet.
• He was famous for both epic and lyrical
poems. His lyrics describe nature and
peasants' work, speak of love.
• He wrote three of the most famous poems
in Latin literature: the Eclogues,
the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid.
 Aeneid
• Virgil’s epic poem "Aeneid" was
created under the influence of
"Iliad" and "Odyssey" and also
describes battles and journeys.
• It tells the legendary story of
Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled
to Italy, where he became the
ancestor of the Romans.
 Aeneid
• 12 books
• Aneid, like Homer’s poems, is written
in dactylic hexameter.
• The first six books tell the story of Aeneas'
wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the
poem's second half treats the Trojans'
ultimately victorious war upon the Latins.
 Quiz 1: match the author and the work(s)
if you answer correctly 5 questions, you get 1 point, if 3-4 questions –
0.5 point, for fewer correct answers you get nothing.

1) Homer a) “Heracles”

2) Aesop b) “Antigone”

3) Aeschylus c) “Unity”, “The Ant and the

Grasshopper”, “The Dog in the
Manger”, “The Fox and the Crow”
4) Sophocles d) “Iliad”, “Odyssey”

5) Euripides e) “Prometheus”
Quiz 2: Choose the correct answer:

1. “Lisistrata” is a
•A) drama
•B) comedy
•C) melodrama
•D) tragedy
2. “Lisistrata” is about
• A) Trojan war
• B) journey of Greeks across the
Mediterranean to the Black Sea
• C) women’s revolt
• D) Aeneas
3. "Aeneid“ was written by
•A) Virgil
•B) Aristophanes
•C) Aesop
•D) Aeschylus
4. "Aeneid“ was written under the influence
of
• A) “Antigone”
• B) “Heracles”
• C) "Iliad" and "Odyssey"
• D) “Prometheus”
 5. Who are famous for writing epic
poems?
• A) Aesop and Aeschylus
• B) Sophocles and Euripides
• C) Homer and Virgil
• D) Aristophanes and Euripides
THE END