Article about ancient literature. General characteristics of ancient literature

Ancient literature provides a lot of different information about the most 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. Preserved names famous singers and songwriters: Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Eumolpus, and others, who were remembered throughout antiquity.

The original poetic forms are associated with the religious and everyday practice of the ancient Greeks. First of all, these are various types of songs, which are quite often mentioned in the Homeric epic.

Types of lyric songs

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

Frenos - Greek. threnos - lamentation - a funeral or memorial 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 frenos, and the funeral singing of all the 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 Achilles' shield in the Iliad, where the workers in the vineyard lead a cheerful round dance to the singing of a young man and his playing on the forming.

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

encomium - 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, accompanies the bride and groom in the image of the wedding celebration on the shield of Achilles.

The labor song develops before any other types of poetry. Homer, as a singer of military exploits, left no mention of these songs. They are known from the comedy "Mir" by Aristophanes, which is reminiscent of the Russian "Eh, uhnem!", or the song of flour mills on about. Lesbos from Plutarch's The Feast of the Seven Wise Men.

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

Heroic ancient epic

From the pre-Homeric past, not a single one has come down to us whole work. However, they represented a huge, boundless creativity. Greek people. Like other peoples, songs dedicated to heroes were originally associated with funeral laments for a hero. The heroic grave song is an epitaph.

Over time, these laments developed into whole songs about the life and exploits of the hero, received an artistic conclusion, and, to the extent of the socio-political significance of the hero, even became traditional. So, the epic poet Hesiod in his work "Works and Days" told about himself how he went to Chalkis to the festivities in honor of the hero Amphidamantus, how he performed 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 the 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 be performed by a non-professional, as, for example, in the work of Aeschylus "Agamemnon" Iphigenia at the feasts of her father Agamemnon sings of his exploits.

Not only positive heroes were sung. Singers and listeners became interested in negative heroes, whose atrocities were also legendary. For example, Homer's "Odyssey" directly speaks in songs about the notoriety of Clytemnestra.

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

Epitaph (funeral lament);

Agon (competition at the grave);

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

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

Encomium to heroes in civil or domestic life;

Scolius (drinking song) to one or another outstanding personality, but not to ancient heroes, but as simple entertainment at feasts

The same is true in the epic about the gods. Only here the process of development of the epic begins not with the cult of the deceased hero, but with a sacrifice to one or another deity, accompanied by verbal statements, rather laconic. So, the sacrifice to Dionysus was accompanied by the 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

By the time of occurrence, it is older than the heroic. As for fairy tales, all sorts of parables, fables, 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 Geosis's 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

Names of poets of pre-Homeric poetry for the most part fictional. The folk tradition never forgot these names and colored the legends about their life and work with their fantasy.

Orpheus

Among the most famous singers is Orpheus. This name of an 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 Thessalian Pieria, near Olympus, where the Muses themselves reigned, or, in another version, in Thrace, where his parents were Muse Calliope and the Thracian king Eagr.

Orpheus is an extraordinary singer and lyre player. Trees and rocks move from his singing and music, wild animals are tamed, and impregnable Hades himself listens to his songs. After the death of Orpheus, his body was buried by the Muses, and his lyre and head sailed 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 Bacchantes.

Other singers

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

Some ancient authors are the only genuine work Musaeus was considered a hymn to the goddess Demeter. The son of Musaeus Eumolpus ("evmolp" - beautifully singing) was credited with the distribution of his father's works, the main role in the Eleusinian mysteries. The hymnal poet Pamf ("pamf" - all-light) is also attributed to pre-Homeric times.

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

Ancient Greek literature

IN ancient Greek literature distinguish two periods: classical, from about 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 genre, in the order of their appearance. 9th and 8th centuries BC. - the era of the epic; 7th and 6th centuries - takeoff time of the lyrics; 5th c. 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 c. BC.

epic poetry

The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer were composed, according to some scholars, as early as the 9th century. BC. These are the earliest literary works Europe. Although they are written by one great poet, they undoubtedly have a long epic tradition behind them. From his predecessors, Homer adopted both the material and the style of the epic narrative. He chose as a theme 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 - Homer's imitators, who are usually called "kykliks" (authors of cycles). Their poems (hardly extant) filled in the gaps left in the tradition by the Iliad and the Odyssey. So, Cyprian covered events from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis to the tenth year Trojan War(when the action of the Iliad begins), and the Ethiopian, the Destruction of Troy and the Return - the gap between the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In addition to the Trojan, there was also the Theban cycle - it included Edipodia, Thebais and Epigones, dedicated to the house of Laia 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 the Homeric poems.

It was this form that Hesiod (8th century BC) used in Works and Days, a poem in which agricultural advice was interspersed with reflections on social justice and life at work. If the tone of Homeric 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. Probably Hesiod was also the author of Theogony - a poem about the origin of the gods.

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

Lyric poetry

The development of Greece in the 8th-7th centuries. BC. characterized by the emergence of policies - small independent city-states - and an increase in the social role of an individual citizen. These changes were reflected in the poetry of the era. By the beginning of the 7th century BC. the most important Literature in Greece was lyric poetry - the poetry of subjective feelings. 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), parthenia (songs for the choir of girls), wedding and funeral songs and epinicia (songs in honor of the winners of competitions).

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

Around the same time, the classic of solemn choral lyrics Pindar from Thebes (518 - 442 BC) lived. It is believed that he wrote 17 books, of which 4 books have survived; V total 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 he prefers to Virgil. Manuscripts of Pindar's works are kept in the Vatican. Until recently, Pindar was the only choral 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 she also wrote praises 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 policy (marriageable girls, unions of companions, etc.). It is dominated by such motives as love, feasts, lamentations about the bygone youth, civic feelings. An exceptional place in the history of this genre belongs to the Lesbos poetess Sappho (c. 600 BC).

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

At the turn of 600 BC. the Athenian legislator Solon wrote elegies and iambs. His political and moral themes predominate.

Elegiac poetry covers several different types of poetry, united by one size - elegiac distich. Athenian political figure and legislator Solon (archon in 594) clothed in an elegiac form of reasoning on political and ethical topics.

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

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

Prose of Ancient Greece

In the 6th c. BC. writers appeared who expounded Greek traditions 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 have 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 signs of a historical composition - they have both a critical spirit and a desire to find a generally significant meaning in the events of the past, and art style, and compositional construction.

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

The development of rhetoric as an independent genre was associated in Greece with the rise of democracy and the involvement of all more citizens into political life. Much has been done by the sophists to turn rhetoric into an art; in particular, Gorgias Leontynsky and Thrasymachus of Chalcedon expanded the set rhetorical figures, introduced the fashion for symmetrical antitheses and rhythmic periods.

Rhetoric reached its peak in Athens. Antiphon (d. 411 BC) was the first to publish his speeches, some of which were purely rhetorical exercises dealing with fictitious cases. The thirty-four surviving speeches of Lysias are considered to be examples of the simple and refined Attic style; Lysias, not being a native of Athens, earned his living by composing speeches for citizens who spoke 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 presented in them, provided him with ancient world enormous authority.
But the Orator with a capital letter for the Greeks was Demosthenes (384-322). Of all the speeches that have come down to us, 16 he delivered in a popular assembly, urging 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 took place throughout the Greek world with the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) were reflected in literature. The connection between the citizen and the life of the polis weakened, and in art, literature, philosophy, the tendency towards the individual, personal prevailed. But, although art and literature had lost their former social and political significance, the rulers of the newly formed Hellenistic kingdoms willingly encouraged their development, especially in Alexandria.

The Ptolemies founded a magnificent library in which lists of all the famous works of the past were collected.
edited here classical lyrics and commentaries on them were written by such scholars as Callimachus, Aristarchus, Aristophanes of Byzantium.

Reconstruction of the Library of Alexandria

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

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

Alexandrian prose was mainly the domain 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 the typical characters of the Athenians were widely used in neo-Attic comedy.

From significant historians of this period, only the writings of Polybius (c. 208-125 BC) have survived (partially) - monumental history Punic Wars Roman conquest of Greece.

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

Aeschylus was the founder of a tragedy that was civil in its ideological sound, a contemporary and participant in the Greco-Persian wars, a poet of the time of the formation of democracy in Athens. main motive his work is the glorification of civic courage, patriotism. One of the most remarkable heroes of the tragedies of Aeschylus is the irreconcilable theomachist Prometheus, the personification of the creative forces of the Athenians.

Medea and Jason

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

Euripides

In his tragedies, Euripides reflected the crisis of the traditional polis ideology and the search for new foundations of the worldview. He sensitively responded to the burning 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 public problems new ideas were presented and discussed.

Ancient criticism called Euripides "a philosopher on the stage." The poet was not, however, a supporter of a particular philosophical doctrine, and his views were not consistent. His attitude towards Athenian democracy was ambivalent. He glorified it as a system of freedom and equality, at the same time he was frightened by the poor "crowd" of citizens, who in the people's assemblies resolved issues under the influence of demagogues. Through the thread, through all the work of Euripides, there is an interest in the individual with his subjective aspirations. Great playwright depicted people with their inclinations and impulses, joys and sufferings. With all his work, Euripides made the audience think about their place in society, their attitude to life.

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

The word "ancient" (in Latin - antiquus) means "ancient". But not all ancient literature is usually called antique. This word refers to the literature of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome (approximately from the 9th century BC to the 5th century AD). The reason for this distinction is one, but important: Greece and Rome are the direct ancestors of our own culture. Our ideas about the place of man in the world, about the place of literature in society, about the division of literature into epic, lyric and drama, about style with its metaphors and metonyms, about verse with its iambs and choreas, even about language with its declensions and conjugations - all they ultimately go back to the ideas that developed in ancient Greece, they were transmitted by it Ancient Rome, and then from Latin Rome dispersed along Western Europe, and from the Greek Constantinople - in South-Eastern Europe and in Rus'.

It is easy to understand that with such a cultural tradition, all the works of the Greek and Roman classics were not only carefully read and studied in Europe for two thousand years, but also seemed to be the ideal of artistic perfection and served as a role model, especially in the Renaissance and classicism. This applies to almost all literary genres: to some - to a greater extent, to others - to a lesser extent.

At the head of all genres was the heroic poem. Here, the earliest works of Greek literature were a model: the Iliad, about the events of the legendary Trojan War and the Odyssey, about the difficult return to the homeland of one of its heroes. Their author was considered the ancient Greek poet Homer, who composed these epics, based on the centuries-old experience of nameless folk singers who sang at feasts small songs-tales like our epics, English ballads or Spanish romances. In imitation of Homer, the best Roman poet Virgil wrote "Aeneid" - a poem about how the Trojan Aeneas and his comrades sailed to Italy, where his descendants were destined to build Rome. His younger contemporary Ovid created a whole mythological encyclopedia in verses called "Metamorphoses" ("Transformations"); and another Roman, Lucan, even undertook to write a poem not about the mythical, but about the recent historical past - "Pharsalia" - about the war of Julius Caesar with the last Roman republicans. In addition to the heroic, the poem was didactic and instructive. The model here was Homer's contemporary Hesiod (VIII-VII centuries BC), the author of the poem "Works and Days" - about how an honest peasant should work and live. In Rome, a poem of the same content was written by Virgil under the title "Georgics" ("Agricultural Poems"); and another poet, Lucretius, a follower of the materialist philosopher Epicurus, even depicted in the poem "On the Nature of Things" the entire structure of the universe, man and society.

After the poem, the most respected genre was tragedy (of course, also in verse). She also depicted episodes from Greek myths. "Prometheus", "Hercules", "Oedipus Rex", "Seven Against Thebes", "Phaedra", "Iphigenia in Aulis", "Agamemnon", "Electra" - these are the typical titles of tragedies. The ancient drama was not like the current one: the theater was open-air, the rows of seats went in a semicircle one above the other, in the middle on a round platform in front of the stage there was a choir and commented on the action with their songs. The tragedy was an alternation of monologues and dialogues of the characters with the songs of the choir. The classics of Greek tragedy were the three great Athenians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, their imitator in Rome was Seneca (also known as a philosopher).

Comedy in antiquity was distinguished by "old" and "new". "Old" was reminiscent of a modern pop performance on the topic of the day: buffoon sketches, strung on some fantastic plot, and between them - the songs of the choir, responding to the most lively political topics. The master of such a comedy was Aristophanes, a younger contemporary of the great tragedians. The “new” comedy was already without a choir and played out plots not political, but everyday, for example: a young man in love wants to marry a girl from the street, but he has no money for this, a cunning slave gets money for him from a strict but stupid old father , he is furious, but then it turns out that the girl is actually the daughter of noble parents - and everything ends well. The master of such a comedy in Greece was Menander, and in Rome - his imitators Plautus and Terence.

The ancient lyrics were remembered by the descendants with three concepts: “Anacreontic ode” - about wine and love, “Horatian ode” - about wise life and healthy moderation and "Ode to the Pindaric" - to the glory of the gods and heroes. Anacreon wrote simply and cheerfully, Pindar - majestically and grandiloquently, and the Roman Horace - with restraint, beautifully and accurately. All these were verses for singing, the word "ode" simply meant "song". Poems for recitation were called "elegy": these were verses-descriptions and verses-reflections, most often about love and death; classics love elegy were the Roman poets Tibull, Propertius and the already mentioned Ovid. A very short elegy - just a few aphoristic lines - was called an "epigram" (which means "inscription"); only relatively late, under the pen of the caustic Martial, did this genre become predominantly humorous and satirical.

There were two more poetic genres that are no longer common today. Firstly, it is a satire - a moralistic poem with a pathetic denunciation of modern vices; it flourished in the Roman era, its classic was the poet Juvenal. Secondly, this is an idyll, or eclogue, a description or scene from the life of shepherds and shepherdesses in love; the Greek Theocritus began to write them, and the Roman Virgil, already familiar to us, glorified them in his third famous work, Bucoliki (Shepherd's Poems). With such an abundance of poetry, ancient literature was unexpectedly poor in the prose to which we are so accustomed - novels and stories on fictitious plots. They existed, but they were not respected, they were "fiction" for ordinary readers, and very few of them have come down to us. The best of them - Greek novel Long's "Daphnis and Chloe", reminiscent of an idyll in prose, and the Roman novels "Satyricon" by Petronius and "Metamorphoses" ("The Golden Ass") by Apuleius, close to satire in prose.

When the Greeks and Romans turned to prose, they were not looking for fiction. If they were interested in entertaining events, they read the writings of historians. Artistically written, they resembled either a lengthy epic or a tense drama (in Greece Herodotus was such an “epic”, and Thucydides was such a “tragedian” in Rome - the old singer Titus Livius and the “scourge of tyrants” Tacitus). If readers were interested in instructiveness, the writings of philosophers were at their service. True, the greatest of the ancient philosophers and, in imitation of them, later philosophers began to present their teachings in the form of dialogues (such is Plato, famous for the “power of words”) or even in the form of a diatribe - a conversation with oneself or an absent interlocutor (as the already mentioned Seneca wrote). Sometimes the interests of historians and philosophers intersected: for example, the Greek Plutarch wrote a fascinating series of biographies of the great people of the past, which could serve readers moral lesson. Finally, if readers were attracted by the beauty of the style in prose, they took up the writings of orators: the Greek speeches of Demosthenes and the Latin speeches of Cicero were valued several centuries later for their strength and brightness, continued to be read many centuries after the political events that caused them; and in late antiquity, orators roamed the Greek cities in great numbers, entertaining the public with serious and amusing speeches on any subject.

For a thousand years ancient history several cultural epochs have changed. At its very beginning, at the turn of folklore and literature (IX-VIII centuries BC), stand the epics Homer and Hesiod. In archaic Greece, in the age of Solon (7th-6th centuries BC), lyric flourished: Anacreon and a little later Pindar. In classical Greece, in the age of Pericles (5th century BC), the Athenian playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, as well as the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, created. In the IV century. BC e. poetry begins to be replaced by prose - the eloquence of Demosthenes and the philosophy of Plato. After Alexander the Great (4th-3rd centuries BC), the epigram genre flourished, and Theocritus wrote his idylls. In the III-I centuries. BC e. Rome conquers the Mediterranean and masters first Greek comedy for the general public (Plavt and Terence), then epic for educated connoisseurs (Lucretius) and eloquence for political struggle (Cicero). Turn of the 1st century BC e. and I c. n. e., the age of Augustus, is the “golden age of Roman poetry”, the time of the epic of Virgil, the lyric of Horace, the elegiacs of Tibullus and Propertius, the multifaceted Ovid and the historian Livy. Finally, the time of the Roman Empire (I - II centuries AD) gives the innovative epic of Lucan, the tragedies and diatribes of Seneca, the satire of Juvenal, the satirical epigrams of Martial, satirical novels Petronius and Apuleius, the indignant history of Tacitus, the biographies of Plutarch and the mocking dialogues of Lucian.

The age of ancient literature is over. But the life of ancient literature continued. Themes and plots, heroes and situations, images and motifs, genres and poetic forms, born of the era of antiquity, continued to occupy the imagination of writers and readers of different times and peoples. Writers of the Renaissance, classicism, and romanticism epochs especially widely turned to ancient literature as a source of their own artistic creativity. In Russian literature, the ideas and images of antiquity were actively used by G. R. Derzhavin, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Pushkin, K. N. Batyushkov, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, F. I. Tyutchev , A. A. Fet, Vyach. I. Ivanov, M. A. Voloshin and others; in Soviet poetry, we find echoes of ancient literature in the works of V. Ya. Zabolotsky, Ars. A. Tarkovsky and many others.

The traditionalism of ancient literature was a consequence of the general slowness of the development of the slave-owning 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 a stormy socio-economic upheaval of the 6th-5th centuries. BC e.

In the rest of the 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 a detailed idealization of "heroic" times) , and the era of large states - according to the era of the polis (hence - the idealization of the heroes of early Rome by Titus Livius, hence the idealization of the "freedom fighters" Demosthenes and Cicero in the era of the Empire). All these ideas were transferred to literature.

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

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

Of course, there were times when tradition was felt as a burden and innovation was highly valued: such, for example, was early Hellenism. But even in these epochs, literary innovation manifested itself not so much in attempts to reform the old genres, but in turning to later genres in which tradition was not yet sufficiently authoritative: to the idyll, epillium, 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 for 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 meant only that he was the first to transfer this or that Greek genre to Roman soil.

last wave literary innovation swept in antiquity around the 1st century. n. e., and since then the conscious dominance of tradition has become undivided. Both themes and motives were adopted 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 by Silius Italic, and the logical connection of the episode with the context is increasingly weak), and the language, and style (the Homeric dialect became obligatory for all subsequent works of the Greek epic, the dialect of the most ancient lyricists for choral poetry, etc.), and even individual half-lines and verses (insert a line from the former poet into the new poem so that it sounds natural and rethought in this context, was considered the highest poetic achievement).

And the admiration for the ancient poets reached the point that in late antiquity Homer learned the lessons of military affairs, medicine, philosophy, etc. Virgil, at the end of antiquity, was considered not only a sage, but also a sorcerer and warlock.

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

However, this connection between fictional content and metrical form remained very close in ancient consciousness. Neither the prose epic - the novel, nor the prose drama existed in the classical era. Ancient prose from its very inception was and remained the property of literature, pursuing 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 strove for artistry, the more it acquired specific poetic devices: rhythmic articulation of phrases, parallelisms and consonances. Such was oratorical prose in the form that it received in Greece in the 5th-4th centuries. and in Rome in the II-I century. BC e. and preserved 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 era: these are the so-called antique novels. But even here it is interesting that genetically they grew out of scientific prose - a romanized 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 consequences of these three key features ancient literature are obvious. The mythological arsenal, inherited from the era when mythology was still a worldview, allowed ancient literature to symbolically embody the highest ideological generalizations in their images. Traditionalism, forcing to perceive every image artwork against the background of all its previous use, surrounded these images with a halo of literary associations and thereby infinitely enriched its content. The poetic form provided the writer with enormous means of rhythmic and stylistic expression, which prose was deprived of.

Such indeed was ancient literature at the time of the highest flowering of the polis system (Attic tragedy) and at the time of the heyday of great states (Virgil's epic). In the epochs of social crisis and decline that follow these moments, the situation changes. Worldview problems cease to be the property of literature, they move into the field of philosophy. Traditionalism degenerates into a formalist rivalry with long-dead writers. Poetry loses its leading role and retreats before prose: philosophical prose turns out to be more meaningful, historical - more entertaining, rhetorical - more artistic than poetry closed within the narrow framework of tradition.

Such 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 shifted to faces and everyday objects, truthful sketches of human life and human relations appeared in literature, and the comedy of Menander or the novel of Petronius, for all the conventionality of their plot schemes, turned out to be saturated with life details more than it was possible for poetic epic or for Aristophanes' comedy. However, is it 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 everyday writing vigilance of Petronius and Martial - is still a moot point.

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

The system of genres in ancient literature was distinct and stable. Ancient literary thinking was genre-based: starting to write a poem, arbitrarily individual in content and mood, the poet, nevertheless, could always say in advance which genre it would belong to and which ancient model it would strive for.

Genres differed older and later (epos 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 stood out (this is how the Attic comedy was divided into three stages). Genres differed higher and lower: the heroic epic was considered the highest, although Aristotle in Poetics put tragedy above it. Virgil's path from the idyll ("Bucoliki") through the didactic epic ("Georgics") to the heroic epic ("Aeneid") was clearly perceived by both the poet and his contemporaries as a path from "lower" to "higher" genres.

Each genre had its own traditional themes and topics, usually very narrow: Aristotle noted that even mythological themes are not fully used in 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 the motives suggested by Homer and Virgil: prophetic dreams, a list of ships, the commander’s farewell to his wife, competition, making a shield, descent into Hades, etc.

Poets who sought novelty in the epic usually turned not to the heroic epic, but to the didactic one. This is also characteristic of the ancient belief in the omnipotence of the poetic form: any material (be it astronomy or pharmacology) presented in verse was already considered high poetry (again, despite the objections of Aristotle). The poets excelled in choosing the most unexpected themes for didactic poems and in retelling these in the same traditional epic style, with periphrastic substitutions for almost every term. Of course, the scientific value of such poems was very small.

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, high - high style, artificially formed. The means of forming a high style were developed by rhetoric: among them the choice of words, the combination of words and stylistic figures (metaphors, metonyms, etc.) differed. Thus, the doctrine of the selection of words prescribed to avoid words, the use of which was not consecrated by previous examples of high genres.

Therefore, even historians like Livy or Tacitus, when describing wars, do their best to avoid military terms and geographical names, so that it is almost impossible to imagine a specific course of military operations from such descriptions. The doctrine of the combination of words prescribed to rearrange words and divide phrases to achieve rhythmic harmony. Late antiquity takes this to such extremes that rhetorical prose far surpasses even poetry in the pretentiousness of verbal constructions. Similarly, the use of figures changed.

We repeat that the severity of these requirements varied with respect to different genres: Cicero enjoys different style in letters, philosophical treatises and speeches, and in Apuleius his novel, recitations and philosophical writings are so dissimilar in style that scientists have more than once doubted the authenticity of one or another group of his works. However, over time, even in the lower genres, the authors tried to catch up with the highest ones in terms of pomp of style: eloquence mastered the techniques of poetry, history and philosophy - the techniques of eloquence, scientific prose - the techniques of philosophy.

This general trend towards high style sometimes came into conflict with general trend to preserve the traditional style of each genre. The result was such outbursts of literary struggle, such as, for example, the controversy between the Atticists and the Asians in the eloquence of the 1st century. BC e.: Atticists demanded a return to a relatively simple style ancient orators, the Asians defended the sublime and magnificent oratorical style that had developed by this time.

The system of language in ancient literature was also subject to the requirements of tradition, and also through the system of genres. This is seen with particular clarity in Greek literature. Because of political fragmentation polis of Greece Greek has long been divided into a number of distinctly different dialects, the most important of which were Ionian, Attic, Aeolian, and Dorian.

Different genres of ancient Greek poetry originated in different regions of Greece and, accordingly, used different dialects: the Homeric epic - Ionian, but with strong elements of the neighboring Aeolian dialect; from the epic, this dialect passed into the elegy, epigram and other related genres; the choric lyrics were dominated by the features of the Dorian dialect; the tragedy used the Attic dialect in dialogue, but the insert songs of the choir contained - on the model of choric lyrics - many Dorian elements. early prose(Herodotus) used the Ionian dialect, but from the end of the 5th century. BC e. (Thucydides, Athenian orators) switched to Attic.

All these dialect features were considered integral features of the respective genres and were carefully observed by all later writers, even when the original dialect had long since died out or changed. Thus, the language of literature was consciously opposed to the spoken language: it was a language oriented towards the transmission of the canonized tradition, and not towards the reproduction of reality. This becomes especially noticeable in the era of Hellenism, when the cultural rapprochement of all areas of the Greek world produces the so-called "common dialect" (Koine), which was based on Attic, but with a strong admixture of Ionian.

In business and scientific literature, and partly even in philosophical and historical literature, writers switched to this common language, but in eloquence, and even more so in poetry, they remained true to traditional genre dialects; moreover, striving to dissociate themselves from everyday life as clearly as possible, they deliberately condense those features of the literary language that were alien to the spoken language: orators saturate their works with long-forgotten Attic idioms, poets extract from ancient authors as rare and incomprehensible words and phrases as possible.

Story world literature: in 9 volumes / Edited by I.S. Braginsky and others - M., 1983-1984

First of all, they created a golden generation of people
The ever-living gods, the owners of the Olympian dwellings.
Those people lived like gods, with a calm and clear soul,
Grief not knowing, not knowing works.
Hesiod "Works and Days"

Word antiquus in Latin means "ancient". However, not all ancient literature is called antique, but only the literature of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, which developed over 14 centuries.
The selection of ancient literature among other literatures of antiquity is not accidental. The culture of Ancient Greece, then transferred to Ancient Rome, became the foundation, the base of European culture. The creation of philosophy, mythology, theater and history as a science belongs to the Greeks. Our ideas about the place of a person in the world, about language and its grammar also date back to antiquity, and it was in the ancient era that literary genera (epos, lyrics and drama) and the main poetic meters (iambic, trochee, dactyl) were formed.

Periodization of ancient literature

Ancient literature has come a long way in its development, and is now comprehended as literature of the 4 major cultural periods:
1. pre-literary - is characterized by the creation of basic myths, on the basis of which outstanding works were subsequently written.
2. Archaic (8th-6th centuries BC) - it was during this period that mathematics, philosophy and written Greek literature were born, the main task of which was to create the ideal of a human hero (the hero is necessarily a demigod). The form of social consciousness in this period is the epic, which takes shape in a large literary gender, and the poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" appear. At the end of the period (in the 6th century), a genus of lyrics takes shape.
3. Classical or Attic (5th century BC) - this is the time of the cultural superiority of Athens after the Greco-Persian war. This century is associated with the emergence of democracy (for the first time in world history). There is a kind of drama.
4. Hellenistic (Roman-Hellenistic) - continues from 4-3 c. BC. 4th-5th centuries AD . After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greco-Eastern synthesis takes place. The military-bureaucratic monarchy becomes the classical system. In the 3rd century BC e. the literature of the ancient Latins (Roman) is born, which develops under the influence of Greek literature. The decline of ancient literature in the 4th-5th centuries. AD associated with the destruction of Rome in 476 after the invasion of the Goths and the Visigoths.

Features of ancient literature

1. Mythological themes- was associated with the primitive communal system. Mythology is a comprehension of reality, characteristic of the communal-tribal system, that is, all natural phenomena are spiritualized, and their mutual relations are comprehended as kindred, similar to human. For example, Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth) are husband and wife. The mythological theme was very firmly held in ancient literature, and in comparison with it, any other receded into the background. Historical themes were allowed only in the historical epic, and even then with numerous reservations. Everyday themes were allowed in poetry only in the younger genres (comedy, epigram) and were always perceived against the backdrop of traditional "high" mythological themes. This contrast was usually specially emphasized by ridicule addressed to those who bothered everyone. mythological stories and heroes. Publicistic themes were also allowed in poetry, but they had to be superimposed on mythological themes.

2. Traditionalism - associated with the slow development of the slave society. Contemporaries almost did not feel changes in social life, and when the changes were too pronounced, they were perceived as degeneration and decline. All these ideas were transferred to literature. The system of literature seemed unchanging, and the poets of later generations tried to follow in the footsteps of the previous ones. Each genre had a founder, a role model: for the epic - Homer; for lyrics - Anacreon; for tragedy, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The work was considered the more perfect, the more it looked like a sample.

3. poetic form was dominant in ancient literature. There was no prose for a long period, since art was not considered an everyday matter. The songs were supposed to be like the speech of the gods, that is, to be solemn, high and have a rhythm. creating the poet was like a god became a creator god. According to the Greeks, the gods led the poet's hand, so all ancient poems began with appeals to the deities, who would have to do all the work. For example, the Iliad begins with the words "Anger, goddess, sing to Achilles the son of Peleus."

Introduction

Antique literature (from Latin 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. Its written monuments, created in dialects of Greek and Latin, refer to 1 millennium BC and the beginning of the 1 millennium AD Ancient literature consists of two national literatures: ancient Greek and ancient Roman.Historically, Greek literature preceded the Roman.

1. General information

Simultaneously with ancient culture, other cultural areas developed in the Mediterranean basin, among which ancient Judea occupied a prominent place. Ancient and Jewish culture became the basis of all Western civilization and art.

In parallel with the ancient culture, other ancient cultures and, accordingly, literatures developed: ancient Chinese, ancient Indian, ancient Iranian, ancient Hebrew. Ancient Egyptian literature was at that time in its heyday.

In ancient literature, the main genres of European literature in their archaic forms and the foundations of the science of literature were formed. The aesthetic science of antiquity identified three main literary genres: epic, lyric and drama (Aristotle), this classification retains its basic meaning to this day.

2. Aesthetics of ancient literature

2.1. mythology

For ancient literature, as for every literature originating from a tribal society, specific features sharply distinguishing it from contemporary art.

The oldest forms of literature are associated with myth, magic, religious cult, ritual. Survivals of this connection can be observed in the literature of antiquity up to the time of its decline.

2.2. Publicity

Antique literature is inherent public forms of existence. Its highest flowering falls on the pre-book 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 to include the achievements of the theater in the literary sphere as well. Only at the end of antiquity does such a "book" genre appear as a 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 in a notebook), including illustrations.

2.3. Musicality

Ancient literature was closely associated with music, which in the primary sources, of course, can be explained through a connection with magic and a religious cult. Homer's poems and other epic works were sung in melodic recitative, accompanied by musical instruments and simple rhythmic movements. The performances of tragedies and comedies in the Athenian theaters were designed as luxurious "opera" performances. Lyrical poems were sung by the authors, who thus acted simultaneously as composers and singers. Unfortunately, only a few isolated fragments have come down to us from all ancient music. An idea of ​​late ancient music can be given by Gregorian chant (singing).

2.4. Poetic form

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

2.5. traditional

traditional ancient literature was a consequence of the general slowness of the development of the then society. The most innovative era of ancient literature, when all the main ancient genres were formed, was the time of the socio-economic upsurge of the 6th - 5th centuries BC. 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 (hence the Homeric epic, created as a detailed idealization of "heroic" times), and the era of large states missed the polis times (hence - the idealization the heroes of early Rome in Titus Livius, the idealization of the "freedom fighters" Demosthenes and Cicero in the period of the Empire).

The system of literature seemed to be unchanged, and the poets of subsequent generations tried to follow the path of the previous ones. Each genre had a founder who gave it a perfect model: 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 by the degree of approximation to these samples.

2.6. genre

It follows from tradition strict system of genres ancient literature, which was imbued with subsequent European literature and literary criticism. The genres were clear and stable. Ancient literary thinking was genre-based: when a poet undertook to write a verse, 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 one should strive for.

Genres were divided into older and newer ones (epos and tragedy - idyll and satire). If the genre changed noticeably in its historical development, then its old, middle and new forms stood out (this is how the Attic comedy was divided into three stages). The genres were divided into higher and lower ones: the heroic epic and tragedy were considered the highest. The path of Virgil from the idyll (“Bucoliki”) through the didactic epic (“Georgics”) to the heroic epic (“Aeneid”) was clearly perceived by the poet and his contemporaries as a path from “lower” to “higher” genres. Each genre had its own traditional themes and topics, usually rather narrow.

2.7. Style Features

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

2.8. Worldview features

Ancient literature maintained a close connection with worldview features tribal, polis, state system and reflected them. Greek and partially Roman literature demonstrate a close connection with religion, philosophy, politics, morality, oratory, legal proceedings, without which their existence in the classical era would lose all its meaning. At the time of their classical heyday they were far from entertaining, only at the end of antiquity did they become part of leisure. The modern service in the Christian church has inherited some features of the ancient Greek theatrical performance and religious mysteries - a completely serious character, the presence of all members of the community and their symbolic participation in the action, high themes, musical accompaniment and spectacular effects, the highly moral goal of spiritual purification ( catharsis according to Aristotle) ​​of man.

3. Ideological content and values

3.1. ancient humanism

Ancient literature formed the spiritual values ​​that became the basis for the entire European culture. Distributed in the days of antiquity itself, they suffered persecution in Europe for a millennium and a half, but then returned. These values ​​include, first of all, the ideal of an active, active, in love with life, obsessed with a thirst for knowledge and creativity, a person who is ready to make decisions independently and be responsible for his actions. Antiquity considered the highest meaning of life happiness on earth.

3.2. The rise of earthly beauty

The Greeks developed the concept of the ennobling role of beauty, which they understood as a reflection of the eternal, living and perfect Cosmos. According to the material nature of the Universe, they understood beauty bodily and found it in nature, in the human body - appearance, plastic movements, physical exercises, created it in the art of words and music, in sculpture, in majestic architectural forms, arts and crafts. They discovered the beauty of the moral man, who was seen as the harmony of physical and spiritual perfection.

3.3. Philosophy

The Greeks created the basic concepts of European philosophy, in particular, the beginnings of the philosophy of idealism, and they understood philosophy itself as a path to personal spiritual and physical perfection. The Romans developed the ideal of a state close to the modern one, the basic postulates of law, which remain valid to this day. The Greeks and Romans discovered and tested in political life the principles of democracy, the republic, formed the ideal of a free and selfless citizen.

After the decline of antiquity, the value of earthly life, man and bodily beauty, established by it, lost its significance for many centuries. In the Renaissance, they, in synthesis with Christian spirituality, became the basis of a new European culture.

Since then, the ancient theme has never left European art, acquiring, of course, a new understanding and meaning.

4. Stages of ancient literature

Ancient literature went through five stages.

4.1. Ancient Greek literature

Archaic

The archaic period, or the pre-literate period, is crowned with the appearance of the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer (8th - 7th century BC). The development of literature at that time was concentrated on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor.

Classic

The initial stage of the classical period - the early classics is characterized by the flourishing of lyric poetry (Theognis, Archilochus, Solon, Semonides, Alkey, Sappho, Anacreon, Alkman, Pindar, Bacchilid), the center of which is the islands of Ionian Greece (7th - 6th century BC) .

High classics is represented by the genres of tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides) and comedy (Aristophanes), as well as non-literary prose (historiography - Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon; philosophy - Heraclitus, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle; eloquence - Demosthenes, Lysias, Isocrates ). Athens becomes its center, which is associated with the rise of the city after the glorious victories in the Greco-Persian wars. The classical works of Greek literature were created in the Attic dialect (5th century BC).

The late classics are represented by works of philosophy, historiosophy, while the theater loses its significance after the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian war with Sparta (4th century BC).

Hellenism

The beginning of this cultural and historical period is associated with the activities of Alexander the Great. In Greek literature, there is a process of radical renewal of genres, themes and style, in particular, the genre of the prose novel is emerging. Athens at this time loses cultural hegemony, numerous new centers of Hellenistic culture arise, including in the territory North Africa(3rd century BC - 1st century AD). This period is marked by the school of Alexandrian lyric poetry (Callimachus, Theocritus, Apollonius) and the work of Menander.

4.2. ancient roman literature

Age of Rome

During this period, young Rome enters the arena of literary development. In his literature there are:

stage of the republic, which ends in the years civil wars(3 - 1 century BC), when Plutarch, Lucian and Long worked in Greece, Plautus, Terence, Catullus and Cicero in Rome;

"Golden Age" or the period of Emperor Augustus, designated by the names of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius (1st century BC - 1st century AD)

literature of late antiquity (1st - 3rd centuries), represented by Seneca, Petronius, Phaedra, Lucan, Martial, Juvenal, Apuleius.

Transition to the Middle Ages

In these centuries there is a gradual transition to the Middle Ages. The gospels, written in the 1st century, mark a complete worldview change, a harbinger of a qualitatively new attitude and culture. In subsequent centuries, Latin remained the language of the church. In the barbarian lands that belonged to the Western Roman Empire, the Latin language significantly influences the formation of young national languages: the so-called Romanesque - Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, etc., and to a much lesser extent on the formation of Germanic - English, German, etc., which inherit from the Latin spelling of letters (Latin). In these lands, the influence of the Roman Catholic Church is spreading.

5. Antiquity and Russia

The Slavic lands were mainly under the cultural influence of Byzantium (which inherited the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire), in particular, they adopted Orthodox Christianity from her and the spelling of letters in accordance with the Greek alphabet. The antagonism between Byzantium and the young barbarian states of Latin origin passed into the Middle Ages, causing the uniqueness of the further cultural and historical development of the two areas: western and eastern.

Literature

7.1. References

Gasparov M.L. Literature of European antiquity: Introduction / / History of world literature in 9 volumes: Volume 1. - M .: Nauka, 1983. - 584 p. - S.: 303-311.

Shalaginov B.B. Foreign Literature from Antiquity to the Beginning of the 19th Century. - M.: Academy, 2004. - 360 p. - S.: 12-16.

Antique Literature / Edited by A. A. Takho-Nothing; translation from Russian. - M., 1976.

Ancient Literature: A Handbook / Edited by S. V. Semchinsky. - M., 1993.

Ancient Literature: Reader / Compiled by A. I. Beletsky. - M., 1936; 1968.

Kun M.A. Legends and myths of ancient Greece / Translation from Russian. - M., 1967.

Parandovsky Ya Mythology / Translation from Polish. - M., 1977.

Pashchenko V.I., Pashchenko N.I. Ancient literature. - M.: Enlightenment, 2001. - 718 p.

Podlesnaya G.N. The world of ancient literature. - M., 1992.

Dictionary of ancient mythology / Compiled by I. Ya. Kozovik, A. D. Ponomarev. - M., 1989.

Sodomora A Living antiquity. - M., 1983.

Tronsky I.M. History of ancient literature / Translation from Russian. - M., 1959.

Ancient Literature, Poetry and Philosophy

Tronsky "History of ancient literature"

Alexander Ivanovich Beletsky "Antique Literature"