The concept of ancient literature. Ancient literature

Ancient literature(from lat. Antiquus- ancient) - the literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which developed in the Mediterranean basin (on the Balkan and Apennine peninsulas and on the adjacent islands and coasts). Her written monuments, created in dialects of Greek and Latin, date back to the 1st millennium BC. e. and the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. e. Ancient literature consists of two national literatures: ancient Greek and ancient Roman. Historically, Greek literature preceded Roman literature.

Traditionalism ancient literature was a consequence of the general slowness of development of slave society. It is no coincidence that the least traditional and most innovative era of ancient literature, when all the main ancient genres took shape, was the time of the violent socio-economic revolution of the 6th-5th centuries. BC e.

In the remaining centuries, changes in public life were almost not felt by contemporaries, and when they were felt, they were perceived mainly as degeneration and decline: the era of the formation of the polis system yearned for the era of the communal-tribal (hence the Homeric epic, created as an expanded idealization of “heroic” times), and the era of large states - for the era polisnoy (hence the idealization of the heroes of early Rome by Titus Livy, hence the idealization of the “freedom fighters” Demosthenes and Cicero in the era of the Empire). All these ideas were transferred to literature.

The literary system seemed unchanging, and poets of subsequent generations tried to follow in the footsteps of the previous ones. Each genre had a founder who gave its complete example: Homer - for epic, Archilochus - for iambic, Pindar or Anacreon - for the corresponding lyrical genres, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides - for tragedy, etc. The degree of perfection of each new work or poet was measured by the degree of its approximation to these samples.

This system of ideal models was of particular importance for Roman literature: in essence, the entire history of Roman literature can be divided into two periods - the first, when the Greek classics, Homer or Demosthenes, were the ideal for Roman writers, and the second, when it was decided that Roman literature had already equaled the Greek in perfection, and the Roman classics, Virgil and Cicero, became the ideal for Roman writers.

Of course, there were also eras when tradition was felt as a burden and innovation was highly valued: such, for example, was early Hellenism. But even in these eras, literary innovation was manifested not so much in attempts to reform old genres, but in turning to later genres in which the tradition was not yet sufficiently authoritative: the idyll, epigram, epigram, mime, etc.

Therefore, it is easy to understand why, in those rare cases when the poet declared that he was composing “hitherto unheard songs” (Horace, “Odes”, III, 1, 3), his pride was expressed so hyperbolically: he was proud not only of himself, but also for all the poets of the future who should follow him as the founder of a new genre. However, in the mouth of a Latin poet such words often only meant that he was the first to transfer one or another Greek genre to Roman soil.

Last wave of literary innovation swept in antiquity around the 1st century. n. e., and from then on the conscious dominance of tradition became undivided. They adopted themes and motifs from the ancient poets (we find the making of a shield for the hero first in the Iliad, then in the Aeneid, then in the Punic of Silius Italica, and the logical connection of the episode with the context is increasingly weaker), and language, and style (the Homeric dialect became mandatory for all subsequent works of the Greek epic, the dialect of the most ancient lyricists - for choral poetry, etc.), and even individual hemistiches and verses (insert a line from a previous poet into a new poem so that it sounds natural and interpreted in a new way in this context was considered the highest poetic achievement).

And the admiration for the ancient poets went so far that in late antiquity they learned from Homer lessons in military affairs, medicine, philosophy, etc. At the end of antiquity, Virgil was no longer considered not only a sage, but also a sorcerer and warlock.

The third feature of ancient literature is dominance of poetic form- the result of the most ancient, pre-literate attitude towards verse as the only means of preserving in memory the true verbal form of oral tradition. Even philosophical works in the early days of Greek literature were written in verse (Parmenides, Empedocles), and even Aristotle at the beginning of Poetics had to explain that poetry differs from non-poetry not so much in metrical form as in fictitious content.

However, this connection between fictional content and metrical form remained very close in the ancient consciousness. Neither prose epic - novel, nor prose drama existed in the classical era. From its very inception, ancient prose was and remained the property of literature that pursued not artistic, but practical goals - scientific and journalistic. (It is no coincidence that “poetics” and “rhetoric”, the theory of poetry and the theory of prose in ancient literature differed very sharply.)

Moreover, the more this prose strived for artistry, the more it absorbed specifically poetic devices: rhythmic division of phrases, parallelisms and consonances. This was oratorical prose in the form in which it received in Greece in the 5th-4th centuries. and in Rome in the 2nd-1st centuries. BC e. and preserved it until the end of antiquity, having a powerful influence on historical, philosophical, and scientific prose. Fiction in our sense of the word - prose literature with fictional content - appears in antiquity only in the Hellenistic and Roman eras: these are the so-called ancient novels. But even here it is interesting that genetically they grew out of scientific prose - novelized history, their distribution was infinitely more limited than in modern times, they served mainly the lower classes of the reading public and they were arrogantly neglected by representatives of “genuine”, traditional literature.

The mythological arsenal, inherited from the era when mythology was still a worldview, allowed ancient literature to symbolically embody in its images the highest ideological generalizations. Traditionalism, forcing each image of a work of art to be perceived against the background of all its previous use, surrounded these images with a halo of literary associations and thereby endlessly enriched its content. The poetic form gave the writer enormous means of rhythmic and stylistic expressiveness, which prose was deprived of.

This is the ancient literature of the 4th century. BC e., the era of Plato and Isocrates, or II-III centuries. n. e., the era of the “second sophistry”. However, these periods brought with them another valuable quality: attention turned to faces and objects of everyday life, truthful sketches of human life and human relationships appeared in literature, and the comedy of Menander or the novel of Petronius, with all the conventionality of their plot schemes, turned out to be richer in life details than was previously the case perhaps for a poetic epic or for an Aristophanic comedy. However, whether it is possible to talk about realism in ancient literature and what is more suitable for the concept of realism - the philosophical depth of Aeschylus and Sophocles or the literary vigilance of Petronius and Martial - remains a controversial issue.

The listed main features of ancient literature manifested themselves in different ways in the literary system, but ultimately it was they who determined the appearance of genres, styles, language, and verse in the literature of Greece and Rome.

System of genres of ancient literature

The system of genres in ancient literature was distinct and stable. Ancient literary thinking was genre-based: when starting to write a poem, no matter how individual in content and mood, the poet could nevertheless always say in advance what genre it would belong to and what ancient model it would strive for.

The genres differed between more ancient and more recent (epic and tragedy, on the one hand, idyll and satire, on the other); if the genre changed very noticeably in its historical development, then its ancient, middle and new forms were distinguished (this is how Attic comedy was divided into three stages). Genres were distinguished between higher and lower: the heroic epic was considered the highest, although Aristotle in his Poetics placed tragedy above it. Virgil’s path from the idyll (“Bucolics”) through the didactic epic (“Georgics”) to the heroic epic (“Aeneid”) was clearly understood by both the poet and his contemporaries as a path from “lower” genres to the “highest.”

Each genre had its own traditional theme and topic, usually very narrow: Aristotle noted that even mythological themes are not fully used by tragedy, some favorite plots are recycled many times, while others are rarely used. Silius Italicus, writing in the 1st century. n. e. historical epic about the Punic War, considered it necessary, at the cost of any exaggeration, to include there motifs suggested by Homer and Virgil: prophetic dreams, a list of ships, a commander’s farewell to his wife, a competition, making a shield, a descent into Hades, etc.

The system of styles in ancient literature was completely subordinated to the system of genres. Low genres were characterized by a low style, relatively close to colloquial, while high genres were characterized by a high style, formed artificially. The means of forming a high style were developed by rhetoric: among them there were differences in the selection of words, the combination of words and stylistic figures (metaphors, metonymies, etc.). Thus, the doctrine of word selection prescribed the avoidance of words whose use was not sanctified by previous examples of high genres.

Therefore, even historians like Livy or Tacitus, when describing wars, avoid military terms and geographical names at all costs, so it is almost impossible to imagine the specific course of military operations from such descriptions. The doctrine of combining words required rearranging words and dividing phrases to achieve rhythmic euphony. Late antiquity goes to such extremes in this that rhetorical prose far surpasses even poetry in the pretentiousness of its verbal constructions. Likewise, the use of figures changed.

Aesthetics of ancient literature

Mythological

Ancient literature, as well as every literature originating from tribal society, is characterized by specific features that sharply distinguish it from modern art.

The most ancient forms of literature are associated with myth, magic, religious cult, and ritual. Remnants of this connection can be observed in the literature of antiquity right up to the time of its decline.

Publicity

Ancient literature is characterized public forms of existence. Its greatest flowering occurred in the pre-literary era. Therefore, the name “literature” is applied to it with a certain element of historical convention. However, it was precisely this circumstance that determined the tradition of including the achievements of the theater in the literary sphere. Only at the end of antiquity did such a “book” genre appear as the novel, intended for personal reading. At the same time, the first traditions of book design were laid (first in the form of a scroll, and then a notebook), including illustrations.

Musicality

Ancient literature was closely related to music, which in the primary sources can certainly be explained through a connection with magic and religious cult. Homer's poems and other epic works were sung in melodic recitative, accompanied by musical instruments and simple rhythmic movements. Productions of tragedies and comedies in Athenian theaters were staged as luxurious “opera” performances. Lyrical poems were sung by authors, who thus also acted as composers and singers at the same time. Unfortunately, several fragments of all ancient music have reached us. Gregorian chant (chanting) can give an idea of ​​late ancient music.

Poetic form

A certain connection with magic can explain the extreme prevalence of poetic form, which literally reigned in all ancient literature. The epic produced the traditional leisurely hexameter meter, and the lyrical verses were distinguished by great rhythmic diversity; tragedies and comedies were also written in verse. Even commanders and legislators in Greece could address the people with speeches in poetic form. Antiquity did not know rhymes. At the end of antiquity, the “novel” appeared as an example of the prose genre.

Traditionality

Traditionality ancient literature was a consequence of the general slowness of development of the society of that time. The most innovative era of ancient literature, when all the main ancient genres took shape, was the time of socio-economic upsurge in the 6th - 5th centuries BC. e. In other centuries, changes were not felt, or were perceived as degeneration and decline: the era of the formation of the polis system missed the communal-tribal one (hence the Homeric epic, created as an extensive idealization of “heroic” times), and the era of large states missed the polis times (hence the idealization of heroes early Rome in Titus Livy, the idealization of the “freedom fighters” of Demosthenes and Cicero during the Empire).

The literary system seemed unchanged, and poets of subsequent generations tried to follow the path of previous ones. Each genre had a founder who gave its perfect example: Homer - for epic, Archilochus - for iambic, Pindar or Anacreon - for the corresponding lyrical genres, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides - for tragedy, etc. The degree of perfection of each new work or writer was determined degree of approximation to these samples.

Genre

From tradition it follows strict genre system ancient literature, which permeated subsequent European literature and literary criticism. The genres were clear and consistent. Ancient literary thinking was genre-based: when a poet undertook to write a poem, no matter how individual in content it was, the author knew from the very beginning what genre the work would belong to and what ancient model he should strive for.

Genres were divided into more ancient and newer ones (epic and tragedy - idyll and satire). If the genre changed noticeably in its historical development, then its ancient, middle and new forms were distinguished (this is how Attic comedy was divided into three stages). Genres were divided into higher and lower: the heroic epic and tragedy were considered the highest. Virgil's path from the idyll (Bucolics) through the didactic epic (Georgics) to heroic epic(“Aeneid”) was clearly understood by the poet and his contemporaries as a path from “lower” genres to “higher” ones. Each genre had its own traditional theme and topic, usually very narrow.

Style Features

Style system in ancient literature it was completely subordinated to the system of genres. Low genres were characterized by a low style, close to conversational, while high genres were characterized by a high style, which was formed artificially. The means of forming a high style were developed by rhetoric: among them, the selection of words, the combination of words and stylistic figures (metaphors, metonymies, etc.) differed. For example, the doctrine of word selection recommended avoiding words that were not used in previous examples of high genres. The doctrine of word combination recommended rearranging words and dividing phrases to achieve rhythmic euphony.

Worldview features

Ancient literature preserved close connection With ideological features clan, polis, state system and reflected them. Greek and partly Roman literature demonstrate a close connection with religion, philosophy, politics, morality, oratory, and legal proceedings, without which their existence in the classical era would have lost all its meaning. At the time of their classical heyday, they were far from entertainment; only at the end of antiquity did they become part of leisure time. Modern service in christian church inherited some features of ancient Greek theatrical performance and religious mysteries - quite serious in nature, the presence of all members of the community and their symbolic participation in the action, high subject matter, musical accompaniment and spectacular effects, the highly moral goal of spiritual purification ( catharsis according to Aristotle) ​​man.

Historical and artistic significance of ancient literature.

The concept of “ancient literature” unites three major literary eras, three stages of a single literary process, each of which has its own specifics and differs from the two adjacent ones. This is the era of Greek, Hellenistic and Roman literature. None of them are monolithic; in each, under the pressure of the class struggle, a reshuffling of class forces and a change in class consciousness are reflected.

Greek literature begins with the formation of ancient society; Hellenistic, dating from the monarchy of Alexander the Great, begins where Greek literature ends; parallel to the Hellenistic one, Roman literature arose, which was ahead of it.

Ancient literature is the first stage in the cultural development of the world, which is why it influences the whole world culture. This is noticeable even in everyday life. Ancient words become commonplace for us, for example the words “audience”, “lecturer”. The type of lecture itself is classical - this is how lectures were read back in Ancient Greece. Many items are also called by ancient words, for example, a tank with a tap for heating water is called “Titan”. Most of the architecture in one way or another bears elements of antiquity; the names of ancient heroes are often used for the names of ships.

Images from ancient literature are included in modern literature; they contain a deep meaning. Sometimes they are included in popular expressions. Ancient mythological stories are often recycled and used again.

Ancient literature, the literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans, also represents a specific unity, forming a special stage in the development of world literature. For example, the Greeks became more familiar with the more ancient literatures of the East only when the flowering of their own literature was already far behind them. In its richness and diversity, in its artistic significance, it was far ahead of Eastern literature.

In Greek and related Roman literature, almost all European genres were already present; Most of them have to this day retained their ancient, mainly Greek names: epic poem and idyll, tragedy and comedy, ode, elegy, satire (Latin word) and epigram, various types of historical narrative and oratory, dialogue and literary writing, - all these are genres that managed to achieve significant development in ancient literature; it also presents such genres as the short story and the novel, although in less developed, more rudimentary forms. Antiquity also laid the foundation for the theory of style and fiction (“rhetoric” and “poetics”).

The historical significance of ancient literature lies in the repeated returns of European literature to antiquity, as a creative source from which themes and principles of their artistic treatment were drawn. The creative contact of medieval and modern Europe with ancient literature, generally speaking, never ceased. It is worth noting three periods in the history of European culture when this contact was especially significant, when the orientation towards antiquity was, as it were, a banner for the leading literary movement.

1.Renaissance (Renaissance);

2. Classicism 17-18 centuries;

3.Kots classicism of the 18th and early 19th centuries.

In Russian literature, the classicism of the 17th and 18th centuries was of greatest importance, and the most prominent representative of the new understanding of antiquity was Belinsky.

Student (s) OYU: Yakubovich V.I.

Open Law Institute

Moscow 2007

Introduction

Ancient literature is usually called the literature of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Italian humanists of the Renaissance called Greco-Roman culture ancient (from the Latin word antiquus - ancient) as the earliest known to them. This name has remained with it to this day, although more ancient cultures have been discovered since then. It has been preserved as a synonym for classical antiquity, i.e. the world that formed the basis for the formation of the entire European civilization.

The chronological framework of ancient literature covers the period from the IX-VIII centuries BC. to 5th century AD inclusive. The ancient Greeks inhabited the Balkan Peninsula, the islands of the Aegean Sea, the western coast of Asia Minor, Sicily and the southern part of the Apennine Peninsula. The Romans initially lived in Latium, a region located on the territory of the Apennine Peninsula, but as a result of wars, the Roman power gradually grew, and by the end of the 1st century BC. e. it occupied not only the Apennine Peninsula, but also a significant part of the territory of Europe, including Greece, part of Western Asia, North Africa, and Egypt.

Greek literature is older than Roman literature, which began to develop at a time when Greek literature had already entered a period of relative decline.

Ancient literature is inextricably linked with mythology. Authors of works of literature and visual arts drew their plots mainly from myths - works of oral folk art, which reflect people's naive, fantastic ideas about the world around them - about its origin, about nature. Greek myths contain stories of gods created in the image of humans; The Greeks transferred all the features of their own earthly life to the gods and heroes. Therefore, for the study of ancient literature, familiarity with Greek mythology is of particular importance.

The historical significance of ancient literature lies primarily in the enormous influence it had on the development of the cultures of other European peoples: true knowledge of these literatures is impossible without familiarity with ancient literature.

In the 5th century n. e. the general decline of culture, despotism, which gave rise to complete indifference of the population to the fate of the country, undermined the Roman Empire from within; it was unable to resist the barbarians (Germanic tribes). The Roman Empire fell. At this time, a huge part of the texts of ancient literature perished: some authors aroused displeasure, others simply did not arouse interest and were not rewritten, and yet the papyrus on which they were written literary texts, - is short-lived, and those texts that were not rewritten on parchment in the Middle Ages were doomed to disappear. Works containing thoughts that appealed to Christianity (for example, the works of Plato, Seneca, etc.) were carefully copied and preserved.

The ancient book was a papyrus scroll that unfolded when read. The volume of such a book could be up to forty pages in the typographic design familiar to us. Each of Homer's poems was written on 24 scrolls (books); Each book of Tacitus’s “Annals” or Caesar’s “Notes on the Gallic War” was a separate scroll.

Only from the 3rd century AD. e. the papyrus scroll begins to be replaced by the codex - a book of the familiar type for us, made of parchment.

Ancient literature turned out to be close to the Renaissance because it embodied the freedom of human thought and human feelings. Cultural figures of this era began to find and publish works of ancient authors, carefully rewritten and preserved by enlightened monks in the Middle Ages.

During the Renaissance, writers used for their works Latin language, antique themes; works of art they tried to give maximum resemblance to the ancient ones, in which they saw standards of beauty.

Directly after the Renaissance came the era of classicism. The name itself suggests that it was aimed at antiquity, at classical antiquity. Classicism was mainly oriented towards Roman literature.

The influence of ancient literature was strong in the 19th century. it has survived to this day.

Literature of Ancient Greece

The history of ancient Greek literature is organically connected with the life of Hellas, its culture, religion, traditions; it reflects in its own way changes in the socio-economic and political fields. Modern science distinguishes four periods in the history of ancient Greek literature:

Archaic, which covers the time before the beginning of the 5th century. BC e. This is the era of “early Greece”, when there is a slow disintegration of the patriarchal clan system and the transition to a slave state. The subject of our attention is the preserved monuments of folklore, mythology, the famous poems of Homer “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, the didactic epic of Hesiod, as well as lyrics.

Attic (or classical) covers the V-IV centuries. BC e., when the Greek city-states and, first of all, Athens, experienced a heyday, and then a crisis, they lost their independence, finding themselves under the rule of Macedonia. This is a time of remarkable growth in all artistic fields. This is the Greek theater, the dramaturgy of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes; Attic prose: historiography (Herodotus, Thucydides), oratory (Lysias, Demosthenes), philosophy (Plato, Aristotle).

Hellenistic covers time from the end of the 4th century. BC e. until the end of the 1st century. n. e. The subject of attention is Alexandrian poetry and neo-Attic comedy (Menander).

Roman, i.e. the time when Greece becomes a province of the Roman Empire. Main topics: Greek novel, works of Plutarch and Lucian.

Chapter I Archaic period

1.1. Mythology

Myth translated from Greek means “narration, tradition.” The concept of "myth" could include all poetic activity, artistic creations, born in the archaic period, it was mythology that served as the foundation for the subsequent development of science and culture. The images and plots of mythology inspired the work of poetic geniuses from Dante to Goethe, Schiller, Byron, Pushkin, Lermontov and others.

Myths were created in the pre-literate era, and therefore these tales and legends existed orally for a long time, often transforming and changing. They were never written down as a single book, but were reproduced and retold later by various poets, playwrights, historians: the Greeks Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, the Romans Virgil, Ovid, who presented a truly treasury of myths in his book “Metamorphoses”.

Myths existed in various parts of European continental Greece, in Attica, Biotia, Thessaly, Macedonia and other areas, on the islands of the Aegean Sea, on Crete, on the coast of Asia Minor. In these regions, separate cycles of myths developed, which later began to merge into a single pan-Greek system.

Main characters Greek mythology there were gods and heroes. Created in human likeness, the gods were beautiful, could take on any form, but most importantly, they were distinguished by immortality. Like people, they could be generous, generous, but also insidious and merciless. The gods could compete, envy, be jealous, and be cunning. The gods performed feats, but they were familiar with failure and grief. Aphrodite's lover Adonis dies. From Demeter, the god of death Hades kidnaps her daughter Persephone.

The Greek gods constituted several categories in terms of significance. The twelve main supreme gods of the “Olympians” lived on the snow-capped Mount Olympus, the highest in Greece. There was also the palace of the supreme god Zeus, the dwellings of other gods.

Zeus, father of gods and people. He was considered the son of Cronus, the god of time and agriculture. His mother was Rhea. Zeus shared power over the world with his brothers: he received the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld.

From his first wife Metis, Zeus gave birth to Athena. He also had numerous other children from goddesses and mortals. Zeus' wife Hera was the supreme Greek goddess, queen of the gods. She patronized marriage, conjugal love and childbirth.

Zeus's brother Poseidon was the god of the sea, all springs and waters, as well as the owner of the earth's bowels and their riches. His palace was located in the depths of the sea; Poseidon himself commanded the waves and seas. If Poseidon waved his trident, a storm began. It could also cause an earthquake.

The god of the underworld and the kingdom of death was Hades, the brother of Zeus, he owned a kingdom deep underground, he sat on a golden throne with his wife Persephone, the daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter. Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and became his wife and mistress of the underworld.

One of the ancient gods - Apollo, the son of Zeus and the goddess Latona, brother of Artemis, was the god of light and arts, a sharp archer. Apollo received from Hermes the lyre he invented and became the god of the muses. The muses were nine sisters - the daughters of Zeus and the goddess of memory Mnemosyne. They were goddesses of art, poetry and sciences: Calliope - the muse of epic poetry; Euterpe is the muse of lyric poetry; Erato - muse love poetry; Thalia is the muse of comedy; Melpomene - the muse of tragedy; Terpsichore – muse of dance; Clio is the muse of history; Urania – muse of astronomy; Polyhymnia is the muse of hymn (from hymn) poetry and music. Apollo was revered as a patron and inspirer of poetry and music; This is how world art has captured him.

The sister of the golden-haired Apollo was the daughter of Zeus Artemis, huntress, patroness of animals, goddess of fertility. She was usually depicted with a bow, which she skillfully wielded while hunting in forests and fields. Her cult existed in various regions of Greece, and a beautiful temple of Artemis was erected in the city of Ephesus.

The goddess Athena, the most revered in Greece, was born by Zeus himself, appeared from his head in full military garb. The goddess of wisdom and justice, she patronized cities and states both during war and in peacetime, and determined the development of sciences, crafts, and agriculture. It was named in her honor main city in Greece - Athens.

Ancient literature provides a lot of different information about the ancient poetic works and semi-legendary singers who, according to legend, competed with Homer and remained in the people's memory as sages, not much inferior to Apollo and the muses, patrons of the arts. Names preserved famous singers and song writers: Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Eumolpus and others, who were remembered throughout antiquity.

The original poetic forms are associated with the religious and everyday practices of the ancient Greeks. These are, first of all, various types of songs that are mentioned quite often in the Homeric epic.

Types of lyrical songs

Pean - a hymn in honor of Apollo. Of the hymns to the gods, Homer mentions this particular paean. It is mentioned in the Iliad, where the Achaean youths sing it during a sacrifice to mark the end of the plague after the return of Chryseis, and where Achilles proposes to sing the paean on the occasion of his victory over Hector.

Frenos - Greek threnos - lament - funeral or funeral song. In the Iliad, it is mentioned in the episode of the death of Hector, it was performed over his corpse and at the solemn funeral of Achilles in the Odyssey, where nine Muses participated, who sang this phrenos, and the funeral singing of all gods and people around the body of Achilles lasted 17 days.

Hyporchema - the song accompanying the dance may have been mentioned in the description of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, where workers in the vineyard lead a cheerful round dance to the singing of the young man and his playing of the forming.

Sophronistic - Greek sophronisma - suggestion - a moralizing song. This song is mentioned in Homer. Agamemnon, leaving for Troy, left a singer to look after his wife Clytemnestra, who, apparently, was supposed to instill wise instructions in her. However, this singer was sent by Aegisthus to a deserted island and died there.

Encomius - a song of praise in honor of glorious men, sung by Achilles, who left the battle and retired to his tent.

Hymen - a wedding song that accompanies the bride and groom in the depiction of the wedding celebration on the shield of Achilles.

The work song develops earlier than any other types of poetry. Homer, as a singer of military exploits, left no mention of these songs. They are known from Aristophanes' comedy "The World", which is reminiscent of the Russian "Eh, let's go!", or the song of the flour millers on the island. Lesbos from Plutarch's Feast of the Seven Wise Men.

The musical accompaniment of the song, as well as its dance accompaniment, is a remnant of the ancient inseparability of all arts. Homer talks about solo singing accompanied by a cithara or forminga. Achilles accompanies himself on the cithara; This is how the famous Homeric singers sing: Demodocus at Alcinous and Phemius in Ithaca, and so do Apollo and the Muses.

Heroic ancient epic

Not a single complete work has reached us from the pre-Homeric past. However, they represented the vast, boundless creativity of the Greek people. Like other peoples, songs dedicated to heroes were originally associated with funeral laments for the hero. A heroic dirge is an epitaph.

Over time, these laments developed into entire songs about the life and exploits of the hero, received artistic completion, and, to the extent of the socio-political significance of the hero, even became traditional. Thus, the epic poet Hesiod in his work “Works and Days” told about himself how he went to Chalkis for festivities in honor of the hero Amphidamantus, how he sang a hymn there in his honor and how he received the first award for this.

Gradually, the song in honor of the hero gained its independence. It was no longer necessary to perform this kind of performance at festivities in honor of the hero. heroic songs. They were performed at feasts and meetings by an ordinary rhapsodist or poet, like Homer's Demodocus and Phemius. These “glories of men” could also be performed by a non-professional, as, for example, in Aeschylus’s work “Agamemnon” Iphigenia glorifies his exploits at the feasts of her father Agamemnon.

Not only positive heroes were sung. Singers and listeners began to be interested in negative heroes, about whose atrocities legends were also formed. For example, Homer's Odyssey directly speaks in songs about the notoriety of Clytemnestra.

Thus, even scant information about the pre-Homeric heroic epic makes it possible to name its types:

Epitaph (funeral lament);

Agon (competition at the grave);

- the “glory” of the hero, solemnly performed at a festival specially dedicated to him;

- the “glory” of the hero, solemnly performed at the feasts of the military aristocracy;

Encomium for heroes in civil or domestic life;

Skoliy (drinking song) to one or another outstanding personality, but no longer to ancient heroes, but as simple entertainment at feasts

It’s similar in the epic about the gods. Only here the process of development of the epic begins not with the cult of a deceased hero, but with a sacrifice to one or another deity, accompanied by verbal statements that are quite laconic. Thus, the sacrifice to Dionysus was accompanied by shouting of one of his names - “Dithyramb”. The "Homeric Hymns" (the first five hymns), which represent a developed epic about the gods, are no different from the Homeric epic about heroes.

Non-heroic epic

In terms of time of occurrence, it is older than heroic. As for fairy tales, various kinds of parables, fables, and teachings, they were originally not only poetic, but probably purely prosaic or mixed in style. One of the earliest parables about the nightingale and the hawk is found in Geosides' poem "Works and Days." The development of the fable was associated with the name of the semi-legendary Aesop.

Singers and poets of pre-Homeric times

The names of the poets of pre-Homeric poetry are mostly fictitious. Folk tradition has never forgotten these names and has colored legends about their lives and works with its imagination.

Orpheus

Among the most famous singers is Orpheus. This name of the ancient singer, hero, magician and priest gained particular popularity in the 6th century. BC, when the cult of Dionysus was widespread.

It was believed that Orpheus was 10 generations older than Homer. This explains much of the mythology of Orpheus. He was born in Thessaly Pieria, near Olympus, where the Muses themselves reigned, or, according to another option, in Thrace, where his parents were the Muse Calliope and the Thracian king Eagre.

Orpheus is an extraordinary singer and lyre player. From his singing and music, trees and rocks move, wild animals are tamed, and the impregnable Hades himself listens to his songs. After the death of Orpheus, his body was buried by the Muses, and his lyre and head floated across the sea to the banks of the Meletus River near Smyrna, where Homer, according to legend, composed his poems. Many legends and myths are associated with the name of Orpheus: about the magical effect of Orpheus’ music, about the descent into Hades, about Orpheus being torn to pieces by the Bacchantes.

Other singers

Musaeus was considered a teacher or student of Orpheus (Museus - from the word “muse”), who is credited with transferring the Orphic teachings from Pieria to Central Greece, to Helikon and Attica. Theogony, various kinds of hymns and sayings were also attributed to him.

Some ancient authors considered the hymn to the goddess Demeter to be the only genuine work of Musaeus. The son of Musaeus Eumolpus ("eumolpus" - beautifully singing) was credited with disseminating the works of his father and playing a major role in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The hymnical poet Pamphus ("pamph" - all-bright) is also attributed to pre-Homeric times.

Along with Orpheus, the singer Philammon was known, a participant in the Argonauts' campaign, revered in the Delphic religion of Apollo. It is believed that he was the first to create girls' choirs. Philammon is the son of Apollo and a nymph. The son of Philammon was the no less famous Thamyrid, the winner of the hymn competitions in Delphi, who was so proud of his art that he wanted to compete with the Muses themselves, for which he was blinded by them.

Ancient Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature is divided into two periods: classical, from approximately 900 BC. until the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), and Alexandrian, or Hellenistic (from 323 to 31 BC - the date of the Battle of Actium and the fall of the last independent Hellenistic state).

It is more convenient to consider the literature of the classical period by genres, in the order of their appearance. 9th and 8th centuries BC. - the era of the epic; 7th and 6th centuries - time of takeoff of lyrics; 5th century BC. marked by the flourishing of drama; The rapid development of various prose forms began at the end of the 5th century. and continued into the 4th century. BC.

Epic poetry

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were composed, according to some scientists, back in the 9th century. BC. These are the earliest literary works Europe. Although they were created by one great poet, they undoubtedly have a long epic tradition behind them. From his predecessors, Homer adopted both the material and style of epic storytelling. He chose as his topic the exploits and trials of the Achaean leaders who devastated Troy at the end of the 12th century. BC.
The subsequent epic tradition is represented by a number of less significant poets - imitators of Homer, who are usually called “cyclics” (authors of cycles). Their poems (almost not preserved) filled the gaps left in the legend by the Iliad and Odyssey. Thus, Cypria covered the events from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis to the tenth year of the Trojan War (when the action of the Iliad begins), and Aethiopida, the Destruction of Troy and the Return - the interval between the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In addition to the Trojan cycle, there was also the Theban cycle - it included Oedipodium, Thebaid and Epigones, dedicated to the house of Laius and the campaigns of the Argives against Thebes.

The birthplace of the heroic epic was, apparently, the Ionian coast of Asia Minor; in Greece itself, a didactic epic arose somewhat later, adopting the language and meter of Homer’s poems.

It was this form that Hesiod (8th century BC) used in Works and Days, a poem in which advice on agriculture was interspersed with reflections on social justice and life at work. If the tone of Homer's poems is always strictly objective and the author does not reveal himself in any way, then Hesiod is quite frank with the reader, he narrates in the first person and provides information about his life. Hesiod was probably also the author of Theogony, a poem about the origin of the gods.

Homer's poems were first published in Milan by Demetrius Chalkokodylas at the end of the 15th century AD. Their first translation into Latin was made by Leontio Pilate in 1389. The translation manuscript is now kept in Paris. In 1440, Pir Candido Decembrio translated 5 or 6 books of the Iliad into Latin in prose, and a few years later Lorenzo Balla translated 16 books of the Iliad into Latin prose. Balla's translation was published in 1474.

Lyric poetry

Development of Greece in the 8th-7th centuries. BC. was characterized by the emergence of poleis - small independent city-states - and the increase public role individual citizen. These changes were reflected in the poetry of the era. By the beginning of the 7th century BC. The most important type of literature in Greece was lyric poetry - the poetry of subjective feeling. Its main genres were:

Choral lyrics;

Monodic, or solo, lyrics, intended, like choral ones, to be performed to the accompaniment of the lyre;

Elegiac poetry;

Iambic poetry.

Choral lyrics include, first of all, hymns to the gods, dithyrambs (songs in honor of the god Dionysus), parthenias (songs for a choir of girls), wedding and funeral songs and epinikias (songs in honor of the winners of competitions).

Choral lyrics until the end of the 6th century. BC. known only very fragmentarily. A major representative of choral lyric poetry lived at the end of the 6th and beginning of the 5th century BC. - Simonides of Keos (556 - 468 BC). True, only a small number of fragments have survived from Simonides' lyrics; Not a single complete poem has survived. However, Simonides' fame was based not only on the choir; he was also known as one of the creators of epigrams.

Around the same time, there lived a classic of solemn choral lyricism, Pindar of Thebes (518 - 442 BC). It is believed that he wrote 17 books, of which 4 books have survived; a total of 45 poems. In the same Oxyrhynchus papyri, Pindar's paeans (hymns in honor of Apollo) were found. As early as the 15th century, the humanist Lorenzo Balla mentions Pindar as a poet whom he prefers to Virgil. Manuscripts of Pindar's works are kept in the Vatican. Until recently, Pindar was the only choric lyricist from whom complete works have been preserved.

There is fragmentary information about three more poets: Even of Ascalon (5th century BC), Kheril (5th century BC) and the poetess Praxilla (mid-5th century BC); the latter, they say, was famous for drinking songs, but also wrote dithyrambs and hymns.

If the choral lyrics were addressed to the entire community of citizens, then the solo lyrics were addressed to individual groups within the polis (girls of marriageable age, unions of table mates, etc.). It is dominated by such motives as love, feasts, laments about lost youth, and civic feelings. An exceptional place in the history of this genre belongs to the Lesbian poetess Sappho (c. 600 BC).

The first love poet, creator of erotic elegy, was the Ionian Mimneom (second half of the 7th century BC). Several small poems from him have survived. Some fragments of his poems that have come down to us also display political and military themes.

At the turn of 600 BC. The Athenian legislator Solon wrote elegies and iambs. Political and moralizing themes predominate in his work.

Elegiac poetry covers several various types poetry, united by one meter - elegiac distich. Athenian political figure and the legislator Solon (archon in 594) clothed discussions on political and ethical topics in an elegiac form.

On the other hand, the elegiac distich was used from early times for epitaphs and dedications, and it was from this tradition that the genre of the epigram (literally "inscription") subsequently emerged.

Iambic (satirical) poetry. Iambic meters were used for personal attacks in poetic form. The oldest and most famous iambic poet was Archilochus of Paros (c. 650 BC), who lived the hard life of a mercenary and, according to legend, drove his enemies to suicide with his merciless iambics. Later, the tradition developed by the iambic poets was adopted by ancient Attic comedy.

Prose of Ancient Greece

In the 6th century. BC. Writers appeared who presented Greek legends in prose. The development of prose was facilitated by the growth of democracy in the 5th century. BC, accompanied by the flourishing of oratory.

The works of historians and philosophers made a great contribution to the development of Greek prose.

The narrative of Herodotus (c. 484 - c. 424) about the Greco-Persian wars has all the hallmarks historical essay- they have a critical spirit, and a desire to find a universally significant meaning in the events of the past, and an artistic style, and a compositional structure.

The followers of Socrates were the Cynic Antisthenes, Aristippus and others. Aristotle (384-322 BC) also came from this circle, who also wrote a number of Platonic dialogues, widely known in antiquity.

The development of rhetoric as an independent genre in Greece was associated with the rise of democracy and the involvement of an increasing number of citizens in political life. The sophists did a lot to transform rhetoric into art; in particular, Gorgias of Leontinus and Thrasymachus of Chalcedon expanded the range of rhetorical figures and introduced fashion for symmetrical antitheses and rhythmic periods.

Rhetoric reached its highest flowering in Athens. Antiphon (d. 411 BC) was the first to publish his speeches, some of them purely rhetorical exercises dealing with fictitious cases. The thirty-four surviving speeches of Lysias are considered examples of the simple and refined Attic style; Lysias, not being a native of Athens, made his living by writing speeches for citizens speaking in court.

The speeches of Isocrates (436-338) were pamphlets for public reading; the elegant style of these speeches, built on antitheses, and the original views on education expressed in them provided him with enormous authority in the ancient world.
But the speaker with capital letters for the Greeks there was Demosthenes (384-322). Of all the speeches that have come down to us, he delivered 16 in the national assembly, convincing the Athenians to oppose Philip of Macedon. It is in them that the passionate, inspiring eloquence of Demosthenes reaches its highest strength.

Alexandrian era

The profound changes that occurred throughout the Greek world with the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) were also reflected in literature. The connection between the citizen and the life of the polis weakened, and in art, literature, and philosophy, the tendency toward the individual and personal prevailed. But, although art and literature lost their former socio-political significance, the rulers of the newly formed Hellenistic kingdoms willingly encouraged their development, especially in Alexandria.

The Ptolemies founded a magnificent library containing lists of all famous works of the past.
Edited here classical texts and such scholars as Callimachus, Aristarchus, and Aristophanes of Byzantium wrote comments on them.

Reconstruction of the Library of Alexandria

The largest poet of the Alexandrian era was Theocritus of Syracuse (3rd century BC), the author of pastoral idylls and other short poetic works.

For modern reader Of greater interest are the epigrams of such poets as Asklepiades, Philetus, Leonidas, etc.; they were preserved in the Greek (or Palatine) anthology compiled in the Byzantine era, which included a collection from Alexandrian times - the Crown of Meleager (c. 90 BC).

Alexandrian prose was primarily the field of science and philosophy. Of literary interest are the Characters of Theophrastus (c. 370-287 BC), who replaced Aristotle at the head of the Lyceum: these sketches of typical characters of the Athenians were widely used in Neo-Attic comedy.

From significant historians of this period, only the works of Polybius (c. 208-125 BC) have survived (in part) - a monumental history of the Punic Wars and the Roman conquest of Greece.

The Alexandrian era marks the birth of biography and memoirs as independent literary genres.

Aeschylus was the founder of the ideologically civil tragedy, a contemporary and participant in the Greco-Persian wars, a poet of the time of the formation of democracy in Athens. The main motive of his work is the glorification of civil courage and patriotism. One of the most remarkable heroes of Aeschylus’s tragedies is the irreconcilable god-fighter Prometheus, the personification of the creative forces of the Athenians.

Medea and Jason

A feature of all ancient dramas was the choir, which accompanied all the action with singing and dancing. Aeschylus introduced two actors instead of one, reducing the chorus parts and focusing on the dialogue, which was a decisive step in transforming the tragedy from purely mimetic choral lyrics into genuine drama. The play of two actors made it possible to increase the tension of the action. The appearance of a third actor is Sophocles' innovation, which made it possible to outline different lines of behavior in the same conflict.

Euripides

In his tragedies, Euripides reflected the crisis of traditional polis ideology and the search for new foundations of worldview. He sensitively responded to pressing issues of political and social life, and his theater was a kind of encyclopedia of the intellectual movement of Greece in the second half of the 5th century. BC e. In the works of Euripides, various social problems were posed, new ideas were presented and discussed.

Ancient criticism called Euripides “a philosopher on stage.” The poet was not, however, a supporter of a certain philosophical teaching, and his views were not consistent. His attitude towards Athenian democracy was ambivalent. He glorified it as a system of freedom and equality, but at the same time he was frightened by the poor “crowd” of citizens who decided issues in public assemblies under the influence of demagogues. A common thread running through Euripides’ entire work is interest in the individual with his subjective aspirations. The great playwright portrayed people with their drives and impulses, joys and sufferings. With all his creativity, Euripides forced viewers to think about their place in society, about their attitude towards life.

Exercise:
1 . Make a presentation on the topic "Ancient Literature".
2. Post it on the Ru Tube channel

Ancient literature- this is the literature of Ancient Greece and Rome, created in the period from the 10th-9th centuries BC. to the 4th-5th centuries AD

Ancient culture belongs to the so-called traditionalist type, that is, it is aimed at reproducing past traditions, directed towards the past, in which the ideal of the lost golden age is located. Ancient culture is the cradle of European philosophy and art; today we perceive it as a Greco-Roman unity, although if you delve a little deeper into history, it will become clear that the Hellenic and Roman spirits are quite divergent. Having conquered in 146 BC. Greece and the Romans largely adopted the culture of the older and more sophisticated Hellenic civilization. Greek slaves were teachers in the houses of the Roman nobility, knowledge of the Greek language became mandatory for an educated Roman, Roman literature was guided by Greek models. The unity of Greco-Roman culture is determined by the underlying contradiction between the sublime ideal of the polis (from the Greek polis - a city-state that arose as a settlement of free landowners), where high civil and public values, and the real practice of polis life. In Athens, just like in Rome, there was a constant struggle between different layers of free citizens, between aristocratic and democratic aspirations, and outside the eternal seething of public and individual interests, polis life was unthinkable. Due to this constant struggle, ancient culture has a classical character in the sense that G. Hegel gives to the term “classical” in his “Aesthetics”: “This is a social state in which the goals and values ​​of the collective are in balance with the goals and values ​​of the individual, that is, a certain harmonious state in which both these extremes balance each other."

Since natural scientific knowledge about the world was just emerging in the era of antiquity, the Greeks and Romans perceived the world mythologically, and mythology is a highly developed aesthetic system. The cosmos seemed to them to be a single harmonious whole, subject to a certain rhythm. Behind the external diversity of the surface of life, ancient consciousness looked for some stable internal fundamental principle (Plato - “idea”, Pythagoreans - “number”, Thales - “water”, Anaximenes - “air”, Democritus - “atom”). It is this syncretism, that is, the unity of the ancient worldview, long lost by later European consciousness, that manifests itself most fully in the oldest and “highest” form of ancient literature - in the epic.

Epic (from the Greek epos - word, speech) is defined as a story about the past; the epic storyteller, as it were, recalls completed events from a certain absolute temporal distance. The epic embraces life syncretically, in its entirety, freely uses the entire arsenal of literary means, creates complex, evolving, contradictory characters. As a rule, the material of an epic is socially significant events that have left a mark on the people’s memory, however, according to T. Mann, “this is greatness that nourishes tenderness for the small”; “This is a view from the heights of freedom, peace and objectivity, not clouded by any moralizing.” The epic narrator is characterized by a broad outlook on life, a calm, joyful acceptance of all its manifestations; he is endowed with the gift of “omniscience,” and his unhurried, extensive narrative, equally objective in relation to everyone and everything, leaves the reader with a feeling of admiration for the diversity and beauty of the world, a feeling of deep moral satisfaction. The author's position in the classical epic is characterized by a noticeable distance in relation to the events described; the author, as it were, rises above human passions, which is why it has long been customary to call Homer “divine” and compare him with the Olympian gods.

Homer's epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are considered the generally recognized pinnacle of ancient literature. The ancients had no doubt that they were created by the legendary singer Homer in the 8th century BC. Over the past two centuries, the question of authorship, the so-called “Homeric question,” has given rise to a huge critical literature, but still far from being resolved. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of Homer.