Ancient Greek Literatue
• 時間：c. 600 B.C. ~ 300 B.C. (周朝)
The Age of Pericles (461~429 B.C.)
The Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.):
between Athens & Sparta
Alexander the Great, of Macedon,
356~323 B.C.
Three Great Philosophers:
Socrates: 述而無作
Plato: Dialogues
Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, Ion, Laws, etc.
Theory of ideas: True reality for Plato is made up of intellectual concepts
or Ideas, which he considers eternal and unchanging.
Poets are inspired and possessed. (Ion)
Poetry is twice (thrice) removed from reality. It feeds and waters the passions instead of drying
them up. (Republic)
The poet shall compose nothing contrary to the ideas of the lawful, or just, or beautiful, or good
which are allowed in the state. (Laws)
Aristotle: The Poetics
It defines tragedy and discusses its six
component elements—plot, character, thought,
diction, scenery, and song. It discusses motivation,
the unities of time and action, character flaw,
probability, and catharsis (purgation 清滌).
The Greek Drama
• 節慶：Dionysus (酒神),
一、二月 Wine- Press 節
三、四月 Spring 節
• 劇場：open-air, 衛城斜坡,
deus ex machina (機關跑出之神)
可容 17,000人，演員wore masks
• 演出：dithyramb (合唱歌) + actor(s)
Chorus (strophe, antistrophe, epode)
The Acropolis of Athens
Three Great Tragedians
Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound
(《普羅米修斯 被綁記》)
Sophocles: Oedipus the King 《伊底帕斯王》
Thebes   Corinth Thebes
Laius, Oedipus, Jocasta, Tiresias
Irony of fate: “No mortal man can be pronounced happy until
after he is dead.”
Antigone 《安替剛妮》
Euripides: Medea (《糜蒂雅》)
Prometheus Bound
Medea about to kill her children
One Great Comedian
Aristophanes
Clouds: To satirize Socrates and the Sophists.
Strepsiades sent his son to Socrates’ Thinkery.
How far can a flea leap?
Where does a gnat’s hum come from?
Frogs: To criticize Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
An attack on Athenian political and literary decadence.
Dionysus with Xanthias went to Hades to bring back a good
tragedian.
Lysistrata : A sex strike to end the Peloponnesian war
Other Greek Writers
• Herodotus: The History
• Thucydides: History of the Peloponesian
War
• Pindar: great lyric poet
• Sappho: great woman lyric poet
• Theocritus: father of pastoral literature
• Demosthenes: great orator
Ancient Roman Literature
• 時間：
c. 265 B.C. ~ A.D. 330 or later (秦漢~五代)
The Punic Wars (264~146 B.C. Rome & Carthage)
Carthage, Greece, Gaul 淪亡 (146~50 B.C.)
Caesar, Pompey, Crassus (1st Triumvirate)
Octavius, Antony, Lepidus (2nd Triumvirate)
Constantine (建都 Constantinople)
The Roman Empire:
(27 B.C.~ A.D. 476 ~ A.D. 1453)
The Augustan Age (27 B.C. ~ A.D. 14)
Roman Literature:
• The New Comedy: farce, low comedy
Plautus: Amphituo,
Menaechmi,
Miles Gloriosus
Terence: The Eunuch (閹人)
老套的人物與情節。
不敢諷刺當代要人。
Roman Literature:
• A philosophical poem in six books:
Lucretius: On the Nature of Things (物性論)
Atoms  matter  with changing forms
Free-will & doctrine of the “swerve”
Soul energizes body: 皆原子組成，死後分離
神話的神  恐懼 & 迷信
不畏神、不怕死、不求來生  happiness
Roman Literature:
• Orations (演說) and Essays:
Cicero (西塞羅): orator & rhetorician
• Epics (史詩):
•
Virgil (味吉爾): Aeneid《羅馬建國記》
Aeneas, Dido, Turnus, Lavinia
Ovid (奧維德): Metamorphosis 《變形記》
• Satire (諷刺文):
Horace (霍雷斯): Satires, with gentle humor
Juvenal (朱文納爾) : 16 satires, with biting attacks
Aeneas told to leave Dido
Other Roman Literature:
Martial’s Epigrams (警句)
“You feign youth, Laetinus, with dyed hair to the degree that suddenly you
are raven, but lately you were a swan.”
Petronius’ Satyricon (”widow of Ephesus”)
Seneca’s rhetorical tragedies
Apulius’ The Golden Ass (金驢記) Lucius 吃 magic potion
Marcus Aurelius’ The Meditations (沈思錄)
“Of the life of man the duration is but a point, its substance streaming away,
its perception dim, the fabric of the entire body prone to decay.”
The Golden Ass