What is ancient European literature?

Ancient European literature originated in Greece and later spread to Rome. The literature of ancient Greece, Rome in the late primitive society and slavery society constitute the historical content of ancient western literature.

From 16 BC to 12 BC, slave countries appeared in Mycenae in the middle of the peninsula and Crete in the Aegean Sea, with hieroglyphics and culture. At the end of 12 BC, dorris invaded and Mycenae culture was lost. Dorris people are barbarians of clans and tribes. Since the end of 12 BC, Greece has re-developed its society and culture.

Ancient Greek literature can be divided into four periods:

The period of 1 is Homer's era, that is, from the end of 12 BC to the eighth century. At that time, it was the late clan society, and there was no writing. Because it is the formation period of Homer's heroic epic, it is called "Homer's Age" or "Heroic Age". The literature of this era is mainly myths and epics.

The myth of ancient Greece is a collective oral creation handed down from ancient times, which is scattered in various classics of later generations. Myth is the processing of nature and social forces by ancestors in imagination, and it is their naive fantasy when they know nature and society under the condition of low production and knowledge level.

Greek mythology mainly includes stories of gods and legends of heroes.

God's stories are rich in content, including explanations of nature, such as the creation of heaven and earth and the power of the universe (myths about Kea and Ronas, myths about Cronus and Titan gods, myths about Zeus and his brothers); The dependence of human economic life on natural forces (myths of agricultural gods, Dionysian gods, handicraft gods, commercial gods, hunting gods and local gods); The origin and life of human beings and human disasters (the myth of Prometheus and Pandora); Human's spiritual life and social concepts (literature and art, love, war, revenge, fairness, fate, wisdom and other gods' myths). Later myths also reflect oppression and resistance (the suffering myth of Russia and Prometheus) and so on.

The legend of heroes is the story of human ancestors (born of God and man), and it is a review of ancient history, social life and the struggle between man and nature. Heroes are the embodiment of human strength, wisdom, will and desire. Legends reflect the fantasy that human beings overcome the great power of nature, and praise the great achievements and spirit of overcoming difficulties of human beings (the legend about Hercules); There are also stories that praise human wisdom (about the escape from the palace of mystery in a race, the story of Jason taking golden fleece, and the adventure story of orpheus and Odysseus). Legends express the sadness that human beings can't control their destiny (the legend of Oedipus); It describes the war and history (the legend of the Trojan War) and so on.

Although myth is the result of fantasy and imagination, it reflects the life of ancient Greek people, such as the use of fire, the division of labor from fishing and hunting to agriculture, the transition from matriarchal system to paternal system, the original consanguineous marriage and its subsequent conceptual rejection, the exploration of material resources, the struggle between rulers and ruled, and so on. Myth is the product of the development of society from primitive to civilized. In the long process of myth, the image of the same god has also changed in content, for example, Zeus has changed from a rebel to a symbol of the highest representative of the slave owner class and so on.

Greek mythology is the product of the most perfect childhood of mankind and has permanent charm. Its high artistic achievements became the soil of Greek art later. In Greek mythology, God is highly humanized. Except for immortality, God is completely consistent with man in appearance, habits and life. Greek gods and heroes are a strict system, connected by blood and marriage into a unified bloodline. Greek mythology is famous for its richness, vividness, optimism, fantastic beauty and fresh and simple style. It had a great influence on later literature.

Heriat and Odyssey in Homer's epics are the best preserved ancient Greek epics. In addition, there are some epic titles, residual sentences and executive summaries that remain in some later works, such as The Legend of Troy Before and After the Attack, The Death of Odysseus and so on.

The second period is the beginning of the formation of slave society, that is, from the 8th century BC to the 6th century BC. This period is different from previous folk literature, and many famous writers have created it:

The representative works of narrative poems include hershey's Oracle poem Work and Time and the long narrative poem Shenpu at the end of the 8th century BC. The former describes the peasants' perennial toil and oppression, while the latter integrates Greek gods into a complete system, which is an earlier collection of myths.

The lyrics are flute songs and later piano music. The most outstanding person who wrote piano solo was the poetess Sappho in the 7th century BC, who was called "the tenth goddess of literature and art". Sappho's landscape poems and love poems are delicate and euphemistic with beautiful style. Another Anacreon (550 BC? ~ top 465？ ) is famous for writing songs about women who drink. His poems are mainly about pleasure and are more colorful. The representative of chorus piano music is Pindar (522 BC? ~ before 442), written solemnly and uninhibited.

In the 6th century BC, there was a fable told by the slave Aesop. There are prose manuscripts today, which have a far-reaching impact on future generations.

The third period is the classical period, that is, the heyday of slavery in ancient Greece from the end of the 6th century BC to the end of the 4th century BC. Greek culture with Athens as the center is highly prosperous, with famous works on tragedy, comedy, historical prose, speeches, literary theory, architecture, sculpture, philosophy, mathematics and so on. The most brilliant achievement in Greek literature is Greek drama, in addition to Plato, a literary theorist (427 BC? ~ 348 BC), Aristotle (384 BC ~ 322 BC) and other works.

Plato is an objective idealist He advocated "idealism" and "inspiration" in the Republic, Lotus, Drinking, Federico and other literary works, saying that literature and art are "shadows of shadows" and writing poetry depends on "fanaticism". His student Aristotle wavered between idealism and materialism. His literary works include Poetics, which advocates the theory of representation, insists that literature and art imitate life, and emphasizes the edifying effect of literature and art on people's thoughts and feelings. He laid the cornerstone of the western realistic tradition.

The fourth period is the Hellenistic period, that is, from the end of 4th century BC to 146 BC, Rome destroyed Greece. Since King Alexander of Macedonia conquered all Greece and became an emperor, and extended his influence to the Middle East, North Africa, Italy and other places, Greek culture has influenced the surrounding world. At the same time, the cultural center of Greece has also moved from Athens to Alexandria in Egypt, and literature has gradually moved from prosperity to decline, becoming divorced from life, emphasizing formal rhetoric and carving magnificence. Meaningful literature in this period is based on Minand (342 BC? ~ top 292？ ) as the representative of the "new comedy". His plays, such as The World Hater, have a great influence on Roman literature.

The primitive society of ancient Rome also began to disintegrate from the 8th century BC to the 6th century BC. During the period of the Republic of China in the 5th ~/kloc-0th century BC, slavery developed. The early days of the empire reached a high level of prosperity.

Ancient Roman literature is also divided into four periods:

The period of 1 is the late Republic of China, that is, from the 3rd century BC to the middle of 1 century BC. Rome was influenced by Greek culture, and literature began to flourish. Rome originally had its own mythology, and later it absorbed Greek mythology, but many gods used another Roman name. Translating Greek epics and plays into Roman Latin promoted the development of Roman literature. The successful writers in this period were those who imitated the Greek "new comedy", among which Plautus (254 BC? ~ before 184) twin brothers and an altar of gold, terrence (BC 190? ~/before kloc-0/59), mother-in-law and two brothers are the most famous. In addition, there are Cicero's speeches, Lucretius's philosophical poems, Catullus's poems and so on.

The second period is the Augustus period. At the end of the Republic of China, several oligarchs competed for hegemony, and finally Octavian became the head of state. He is called "Augustus", which means "sacred" and "sublime". Octavian ruled 4 1 year from 27 BC to AD 14. This is the "golden age" of Roman literature, and three poets represent the highest achievements of Roman literature:

Virgil (70~ 19 BC) was the greatest poet in ancient Rome. He wrote pastoral poems, farm poems and Aeneas. Aeneas imitates Homer's epic, telling the story that Roman ancestors fled Troy-drifted at sea for seven years-married Dido, the queen of Carthage in North Africa, and then left-and were recruited to be son-in-law in Latin America, defeating their rival in love until a Roman country was established. This is a "literati epic", praising the glory of Rome.

Horace (65~ 8 BC) wrote lyric poems "Song Collection" and "Poetry Collection". There are three poems about literary criticism in The Book of Songs, which are referred to as "poetic art" for short. The Art of Poetry is an important Roman literary theory that imitates Aristotle's Poetics. Reiterating the representative theory, putting forward the idea of entertaining through education, and emphasizing rationality and formal beauty have a far-reaching impact on17th century classicism.

Ovid (43 BC ~ AD 18) wrote love poems, the art of love and the fairy tale Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis includes 250 stories, which systematically combs the myths and legends of Greece and Rome. It reveals real life through the transformation between man, god and things, and provides material for the creation of later writers.

The third period is the pre-imperial period, namely 1 after Octavian's death and the 2nd century, which is called the "Silver Age" in history, and literature is declining. Important are: Petronius (? Satiricon (AD 66) is the first Roman novel that has been handed down to this day. On Sublime by Ron Gilneas (65438+the end of the 20th century) is an important literary theory in Rome. Tacitus (55? ~ 1 18? ) Germanic yearbook, chronicle, Plutarch (46? ~ 120? ) is an important historical prose. Aplus (124? ~ 175? Metamorphosis (also known as Golden Donkey) is the only well-preserved Roman novel so far. During this period, there was seneca (AD 4? ~65) Tragedy, Zhu (60? ~ 140? ) Irony, Lucian (125? ~200? ) prose, are very successful.

The fourth period is the late empire, that is, the 3rd to 5th centuries. During this period, there were many social crises and the world went from bad to worse. After Christianity became the state religion, it destroyed the ancient culture and religious literature became the ruling literature.

Roman literature is an imitation of Greek literature, and its achievements are not as good as Greek literature, but it was born in the autocratic era and also has its national characteristics. It is important that Roman literature is a bridge between Greek learning and later modern literature. After the Renaissance, European culture inherited ancient times, mainly Roman literature. In 476 AD, the Western Roman Empire was destroyed by barbarians under the attack of slave uprising, and the period of ancient literature came to an end.