Literature of Ancient Greece Classical period
Greeks are aesthetically advanced people. And a sense of beauty, a sense of proportionality, proportionality was present in everything. Forming their civilization - a civilization of a fundamentally new historical type in comparison with the civilization of the Sumerians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians - the Greeks learned to work and live beautifully, with taste. No frills and oriental luxury, but modest and sophisticated.
The Greeks created and developed almost all
The culture of Ancient Greece reached its greatest flowering in the classical period (480-323 BC). It is associated with the names of Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Menander.
The concept of high classics also includes literary achievements - the creation of the genre of tragedy and comedy. Ancient Greek tragedy reaches its peak in the 5th century BC. e. in the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The tragedy arose from the cult of Dionysus, when, during the ceremony, the choir and one actor acted out mythological scenes from the life of God with singing and dancing.
Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Aeschylus (circa 525-456 BC) is an ancient Greek poet-playwright, "the father of tragedy." Aeschylus worked during the formation of Athenian democracy and portrayed the victory of the democratic system over despotism, statehood over clan orders, the victory of civilization ("Persians", "Seven against Thebes", "Prometheus", etc.). He turned tragedy from a ritual act into a dramatic genre proper, introducing a second actor for the first time. Aeschylus's tragedies are static, monumental, and the choir held the leading role in them. The characters were strictly divided into positive and negative. Among the images of Aeschylus, Prometheus ("Chained Prometheus") occupies a special place; he is endowed with the features of a fighter who consciously assumes suffering for the sake of humanity.
The titan Prometheus gave people fire against the will of the father of the gods - Zeus. Angry Zeus ordered the blacksmith god Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to the Caucasian rock. Zeus subjects Prometheus to a terrible execution - every morning an eagle will fly in and peck at Prometheus's liver. During the night his liver grows back, and in the morning the eagle pecks at it again.
Thus, dialogue and dramatic action arose, which the choir commented on. The choir's role gradually diminished. And the plot of the work was revealed by the actors, whose number in Sophocles (c. 496-406 BC) reached three.
In tragedies, mythological plots known to all were used and rethought and, less often, real historical events, reflected the peculiarities of the political and spiritual life of society.
was a poet-playwright of the heyday of Athenian democracy and a worthy rival of Aeschylus. 24 times Sophocles received the first prize and never came to the last place; for 60 years of creativity he wrote 123 works according to the ancient tradition. Only 7 have reached us.
In his tragedies, he revealed the personality in suffering in the name of duty, in conflicts between state laws and the unwritten laws of morality and religion, between guile and straightforwardness (Antigone, Electra, Oedipus the King, etc.). Such is Antigone, who went against the ruler of Thebes because of her love for her brother. Two brothers of Antigone kill each other in the fight. The ruler of Thebes, Creon, orders to bury the elder brother with honor, and the body of the younger, Polynices, to be thrown to be devoured by animals and birds. Creon forbids burying him on pain of death. Antigone, sister of Polynices and the bride of Creon's son Gemon, despite the ban, decides to bury her brother's body. But she was noticed. Creon condemns her to death. Gemon vainly convinces her father to have mercy on her. Antigone was walled up in a crypt. Learning about the wrath of the gods, Creon hastens to free Antigone, but she is already dead, and Gemon stabs himself with a sword in front of the body of the bride. Unable to bear the death of his son, his mother Eurydice commits suicide.
Aeschylus and Sophocles revealed the conflict between personality and inexorable fate - an impersonal force that dominates nature and society. The hero's collision with fate, his suffering helped to learn the will of the gods and obey it. The purpose of the tragedy was to influence the viewer, who, empathizing with the heroes, experienced catharsis (Greek - "purification"). The most important questions of being are resolved in the tragedies of Sophocles "King Oedipus" and "Antigone".
Euripides (c. 480-406 BC) was a poet during the crisis of Athenian democracy. He was sharply critical of mythological drama; he did not idealize the heroes, but brought them closer to the everyday level. He portrayed indomitable passions, powerful impulses, sufferings that have no moral meaning ("Hercules", "Medea", "Trojans", "Elena", etc.). Euripides was alien to the monumental images of Sophocles, he portrayed people as they were, and not as they should be. A man, torn apart by passions, unpredictable, entering into confrontation with the outside world, first appears in the tragedy of Euripides "Medea", whom the ancient criticism called "the philosopher on the stage."
The work of Euripides influenced Menander, the tragedy of Seneca the Younger, and through them on European drama. In the dramas of Sophocles (who introduced the third actor) and Euripides, the importance of the chorus gradually decreases, the actor comes to the fore. The flowering of the Greek tragedy was brilliant, but short. Over the course of one century, tragedy has arisen, reached its heights and tilted towards decline. In subsequent centuries, it never rose to the heights of the classical period.
Comedy as an independent genre arose from the songs and dances of satyrs in honor of Dionysus. Every spring, the Greeks celebrated the return of Dionysus, who, according to legend, came to Greece from overseas countries. The holidays were accompanied by games and choir competitions. Scenarios were gradually created for them. This is how a new art form appeared in Greece - drama theater. Comedies and tragedies were staged in it.
However, the genre of comedy received the highest development from the great Aristophanes (c. 445 - c. 386), who turned it into a professional action aimed at depicting social phenomena. Aristophanes, the first prominent comedian in European literature, died at the age of 60, leaving 44 comedies (11 survive). His comedies expressed protest against the war and the desire for a peaceful life. In the comedy Peace, Aristophanes gave a poignant satire on war, in Lysistratus he showed how women invented a means to end war, in Wasps he ridiculed legal proceedings and the Athenians' passion for litigation. He created a bold satire on the political and cultural life of Athens in the late 5th - early 4th centuries. BC, on sophistic philosophy ("Clouds"), on the tragedy of Euripides ("Frogs"), on the aggressive foreign policy of slave-owning democracy
In the 2nd half of the 5th century. BC. historiographic prose has reached a high level of development - these are the historical works of Herodotus ("the father of history"), Thucyditus (the founder of historical criticism), Xenophon.
Herodotus (484-425 BC) wrote "History", the main plot of which was the Greco-Persian wars, the history of the
In the IV century BC. e. in Greece economic and political (but not cultural) decline is revealed. It was at this time that ancient philosophy reached its highest dawn. She was glorified by three great philosophers - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Socrates (c. 470-399 BC) was the ancestor of dialectics as a method of finding the truth by posing leading questions. He was accused of "worshiping new deities" and "corrupting the youth" and sentenced to death (took the poison of hemlock). Socrates expounded his teaching orally; the main source is the writings of his students Xenophon and Plato. The goal of his philosophy is self-knowledge as a way to comprehend true good; virtue is knowledge or wisdom. For subsequent eras, Socrates became the embodiment of the ideal of the sage.
Plato (427-347 BC) was a student of Socrates, and after the death of the teacher he founded his own school in Athens - the Academy. Plato taught that ideas (the highest among them are the idea, the blessings) are eternal and unchanging intelligible prototypes of things, of all transient and changeable being; things are the likeness and reflection of ideas. Knowledge is anamnesis - the memory of the soul about the ideas that it contemplated before its connection with the body. Love for an idea (Eros) is the motivating cause of spiritual ascent. The ideal state is a hierarchy of three estates: rulers-wise men, warriors and officials, peasants and artisans. Plato actively developed dialectics and outlined a scheme of the main stages of being, broken by neo-Platonism. The works of Plato are highly artistic dialogues: "Apology of Socrates", "Phaedo", "Feast", "Phaedrus" (doctrine of ideas), "State",
The disciple of Plato - Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) is rightfully called an encyclopedist. In 335 BC. e. Aristotle founded Lyceum. He was the tutor of Alexander the Great. His works are devoted to a variety of sciences: politics, biology, physics, mechanics, mathematics, botany, etc. Aristotle is considered the founder of formal logic, the creator of syllogistics. The First Philosophy (later called metaphysics) contains the doctrine of the basic principles of being: possibility and realization, form and matter, effective cause and purpose. The source of movement and changeable being is the eternal and immovable "mind", nous (prime mover). The central principle of Aristotle's ethics is reasonable behavior, moderation (metriopathy). Man is a social being. The best forms of the state are monarchy, aristocracy, "politics" (moderate democracy), the worst are rubbing, oligarchy, ochlocracy. The essence of art is imitation (mimesis), the goal of tragedy is the "purification" of the spirit (catharsis). Major works: the logical code "Organ" ("Categories", "On interpretation", "Analysts" 1st and 2nd, "Topics"), ((Metaphysics "," Physics "," On the origin of animals "," About the Soul "," Ethics "," Politics "," Rhetoric "," Poetics ".
At the turn of the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. developing a "new comedy" on family and household and love themes. The star of the "new comedy" or "comedy of morals" is Menander (342-291 BC). His work falls on the period of the struggle of the diadochi. Political instability, frequent changes in oligarchic and democratic regimes, the disasters caused by the war on the territory of Hellas, the ruin of some and the enrichment of others - all this brought confusion to the moral and ethical ideas of citizens, undermined the foundations of the polis ideology. Uncertainty in the future grew, faith in fate. These sentiments were reflected in Menander's "new comedy" ("Tribunal", "Hated", "Shorn", etc.).
The great Democritus (c. 470 or 460 BC), one of the founders of ancient atomism, received an inheritance from his father and squandered it, traveling for ten years at his own pleasure. This behavior was considered a grave sin and required severe punishment. But Democritus delivered a convincing, albeit extremely prolonged, speech in court, proving that he had written a serious book at the end of the trip. The Greeks acquitted a philosopher who traveled for scientific research.
In the 4th century. BC. eloquence reached its peak - judicial, political and "ceremonial". In this regard, rhetoric arises - the theory of style and oratorical argumentation. Under the conditions of Macedonian rule and the Hellenistic states (early 3rd century BC), political eloquence disappeared, and literature turned to family and everyday topics.