Greek literature

Greek literature, body of wri ngs in the Greek language, with a con nuous
history extending from the 1st millennium BC to the present day. From the
beginning its writers were Greeks living not only in Greece proper but also
in Asia Minor, the Aegean Islands, and Magna Graecia (Sicily and southern
Italy). Later, a er the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek became the
common language of the eastern Mediterranean lands and then of the
Byzan ne Empire. Literature in Greek was produced not only over a much
wider area but also by those whose mother tongue was not Greek. Even
before the Turkish conquest (1453) the area had begun to shrink again, and
now it is chiefly confined to Greece and Cyprus.
Ancient Greek literature
Of the literature of ancient Greece only a rela vely small propor on
survives. Yet it remains important, not only because much of it is of
supreme quality but also because un l the mid-19th century the greater
part of the literature of the Western world was produced by writers who
were familiar with the Greek tradi on, either directly or through the
medium of La n, who were conscious that the forms they used were mostly
of Greek inven on, and who took for granted in their readers some
familiarity with Classical literature.
The periods
The history of ancient Greek literature may be divided into three periods:
Archaic (to the end of the 6th century BC); Classical (5th and 4th centuries
BC); and Hellenis c and Greco-Roman (3rd century BC onward).
Archaic period, to the end of the 6th century BC
The Greeks created poetry before they made use of wri ng for literary
purposes, and from the beginning their poetry was intended to be sung or
recited. (The art of wri ng was li le known before the 7th century BC. The
script used in Crete and Mycenae during the 2nd millennium BC [Linear B] is
not known to have been employed for other than administra ve purposes,
and a er the destruc on of the Mycenaean ci es it was forgo en.)
An Odyssey of Grecian Literature

Its subject was myth—part legend, based some mes on the dim memory of
historical events; part folktale; and part religious specula on. But since the
myths were not associated with any religious dogma, even though they
o en treated of gods and heroic mortals, they were not authorita ve and
could be varied by a poet to express new concepts.
Thus, at an early stage Greek thought was advanced as poets refashioned
their materials; and to this stage of Archaic poetry belonged the epics
ascribed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, retelling intermingled history
and myth of the Mycenaean Age. These two great poems, standing at the
beginning of Greek literature, established most of the literary conven ons
of the epic poem. The didac c poetry of Hesiod (c. 700 BC) was probably
later in composi on than Homer’s epics and, though different in theme and
treatment, con nued the epic tradi on.
The several types of Greek lyric poetry originated in the Archaic period
among the poets of the Aegean Islands and of Ionia on the coast of Asia
Minor. Archilochus of Paros, of the 7th century BC, was the earliest Greek
poet to employ the forms of elegy (in which the epic verse line alternated
with a shorter line) and of personal lyric poetry. His work was very highly
rated by the ancient Greeks but survives only in fragments; its forms and
metrical pa erns—the elegiac couplet and a variety of lyric metres—were
taken up by a succession of Ionian poets. At the beginning of the 6th
century Alcaeus and Sappho, composing in the Aeolic dialect of Lesbos,
produced lyric poetry mostly in the metres named a er them (the alcaic
and the sapphic), which Horace was later to adapt to La n poetry. No other
poets of ancient Greece entered into so close a personal rela onship with
the reader as Alcaeus, Sappho, and Archilochus do. They were succeeded by
Anacreon of Teos, in Ionia, who, like Archilochus, composed his lyrics in the
Ionic dialect. Choral lyric, with musical accompaniment, belonged to the
Dorian tradi on and its dialect, and its representa ve poets in the period
were Alcman in Sparta and Stesichorus in Sicily.
Both tragedy and comedy had their origins in Greece. “Tragic” choruses are
said to have existed in Dorian Greece around 600 BC, and in a rudimentary
drama c form tragedy became part of the most famous of the Dionysian
fes vals, the Great, or City, Dionysia at Athens, about 534. Comedy, too,
originated partly in Dorian Greece and developed in A ca, where it was
officially recognized rather later than tragedy. Both were connected with
the worship of Dionysus, god of frui ulness and of wine and ecstasy.
Wri en codes of law were the earliest form of prose and were appearing by
the end of the 7th century, when knowledge of reading and wri ng was
becoming more widespread. No prose writer is known earlier than
Pherecydes of Syros (c. 550 BC), who wrote about the beginnings of the
world; but the earliest considerable author was Hecataeus of Miletus, who
wrote about both the mythical past and the geography of the
Mediterranean and surrounding lands. To Aesop, a semi-historical,
semi-mythological character of the mid-6th century, have been a ributed
the moralizing beast fables inherited by later writers.

Listen to ar cle10 minutes

Classical period, 5th and 4th centuries BC
True tragedy was created by Aeschylus and con nued with Sophocles and
Euripides in the second half of the 5th century. Aristophanes, the greatest
of the comedic poets, lived on into the 4th century, but the Old Comedy did
not survive the fall of Athens in 404.
The sublime themes of Aeschylean tragedy, in which human beings stand
answerable to the gods and receive awe-inspiring insight into divine
purposes, are exemplified in the three plays of the Oresteia. The tragedy of
Sophocles made progress toward both drama c complexity and naturalness
while remaining orthodox in its treatment of religious and moral issues.
Euripides handled his themes on the plane of skep cal enlightenment and
doubted the tradi onal picture of the gods. Corresponding development of
drama c realiza on accompanied the shi of vision: the number of
individual actors was raised to three, each capable of taking several parts.
The Old Comedy of Aristophanes was established later than tragedy but
preserved more obvious traces of its origin in ritual; for the vigour, wit, and
indecency with which it keenly sa rized public issues and prominent
persons clearly derived from the ribaldry of the Dionysian fes val.
Aristophanes’ last comedies show a transi on, indicated by the dwindling
importance of the chorus, toward the Middle Comedy, of which no plays are
extant. This phase was followed toward the beginning of the 3rd century by
the New Comedy, introduced by Menander, which turned for its subjects to
the private fic onal world of ordinary people. Later adapta ons of New
Comedy in La n by Plautus and Terence carried the influence of his work on
to medieval and modern mes.
In the 5th century, Pindar, the greatest of the Greek choral lyrists, stood
outside the main Ionic-A c stream and embodied in his splendid odes a
vision of the world seen in terms of aristocra c values that were already
growing obsolete. Greek prose came to maturity in this period. Earlier
writers such as Anaxagoras the philosopher and Protagoras the Sophist used
the tradi onal Ionic dialect, as did Herodotus the historian. His successors
in history, Thucydides and Xenophon, wrote in A c.
The works of Plato and Aristotle, of the 4th century, are the most important
of all the products of Greek culture in the intellectual history of the West.
They were preoccupied with ethics, metaphysics, and poli cs as
humankind’s highest study and, in the case of Aristotle, extended the range
to include physics, natural history, psychology, and literary cri cism. They
have formed the basis of Western philosophy and, indeed, they determined,
for centuries to come, the development of European thought.
This was also a golden age for rhetoric and oratory, first taught by Corax of
Syracuse in the 5th century. The study of rhetoric and oratory raised
ques ons of truth and morality in argument, and thus it was of concern to
the philosopher as well as to the advocate and the poli cian and was
expounded by teachers, among whom Isocrates was outstanding. The
ora ons of Demosthenes, a statesman of 4th-century Athens and the most
famous of Greek orators, are preeminent for force and power.
Hellenis c and Greco-Roman periods
In the huge empire of Alexander the Great, Macedonians and Greeks
composed the new governing class; and Greek became the language of
administra on and culture, a new composite dialect based to some extent
on A c and called the Koine, or common language. Everywhere the
tradi onal city-state was in decline, and individuals were becoming aware
of their isola on and were seeking consolida on and sa sfac on outside
corporate society. Ar s c crea on now came under private patronage, and,
except for Athenian comedy, composi ons were intended for a small, select
audience that admired polish, erudi on, and subtlety.
An event of great importance for the development of new tendencies was
the founding of the Museum, the shrine of the Muses with its enormous
library, at Alexandria. The chief librarian was some mes a poet as well as
tutor of the heir apparent. The task of accumula ng and preserving
knowledge begun by the Sophists and con nued by Aristotle and his
adherents was for the first me properly endowed. Through the researches
of the Alexandrian scholars, texts of ancient authors were preserved.
The Hellenis c period lasted from the end of the 4th to the end of the 1st
century BC. For the next three centuries, un l Constan nople became the
capital of the Byzan ne Empire, Greek writers were conscious of belonging
to a world of which Rome was the centre.
The genres
Epic narra ve
At the beginning of Greek literature stand the two great epics, the Iliad and
the Odyssey. Some features of the poems reach far into the Mycenaean age,
perhaps to 1500 BC, but the wri en works are tradi onally ascribed to
Homer; in something like their present form they probably date to the 8th
century.
The Iliad and the Odyssey are primary examples of the epic narra ve, which
in an quity was a long narra ve poem, in an elevated style, celebra ng
heroic achievement. The Iliad is the tragic story of the wrath of Achilles, son
of a goddess and richly endowed with all the quali es that make men
admirable. With his readiness to sacrifice all to honour, Achilles embodies
the Greek heroic ideal; and the contrast between his superb quali es and
his short and troubled life reflects the sense of tragedy always prevalent in
Greek thought. Whereas the Iliad is tragedy, the Odyssey is tragicomedy. It
is an enriched version of the old folktale of the wanderer’s return and of his
triumph over those who were usurping his rights and importuning his wife
at home. Odysseus too represents a Greek ideal. Though by no means
inadequate in ba le, he works mainly by cra and guile; and it is by mental
superiority that he survives and prevails.
Both poems were based on plots that grip the reader, and the story is told
in language that is simple and direct, yet eloquent. The Iliad and the
Odyssey, though they are the oldest European poetry, are by no means
primi ve. They marked the fulfillment rather than the beginning of the
poe c form to which they belong. They were essen ally oral poems,
handed down, developed, and added to over a vast period of me, a theme
upon which successive nameless poets freely improvised. The world they
reflect is full of inconsistencies; weapons belong to both the Bronze and
Iron Ages, and objects of the Mycenaean period jostle others from a me
five centuries later. Certain mysteries remain: the date of the great poet or
poets who gave structure and shape to the two epics; the social func on of
poems that take several days to recite; and the manner in which these
poems came to be recorded in wri ng probably in the course of the 6th
century BC.
In the ancient world the Iliad and the Odyssey stood in a class apart among
Archaic epic poems. Of these, there were a large number known later as the
epic cycle. They covered the whole story of the wars of Thebes and Troy as
well as other famous myths. A number of shorter poems in epic style, the
Homeric Hymns, are of considerable beauty.
A subgenre was represented by epics that recounted not ancient mythical
events but recent historical episodes, especially coloniza on and the
founda on of ci es. Examples include Archaeology of the Samians by
Semonides of Amorgos (7th century BC; in elegiac couplets), Smyrneis by
Mimnermus of Colophon (7th century BC; in elegiac couplets), Founda on
of Colophon and Migra on to Elea in Italy by Xenophanes of Colophon (6th
century BC; metre unknown), none of which are extant.
Epic narra ve con nued and developed in new forms during the Classical,
Hellenis c, and Greco-Roman periods; works represented both subgenres.
Notable mythical epics included the lost Thebais of An machus of Colophon
(4th century BC), the surviving Argonau ca in 4 books by Apollonius of
Rhodes (3rd century BC), and the surviving Dionysiaca in 48 books by
Nonnus of Panopolis (5th century AD). The historical epics do not survive,
but among them were Persica, on the Persian Wars, by Choerilus of Samos
(5th century BC); an epic on the deeds of Alexander the Great by Choerilus
of Iasus (4th century BC); an epic on the deeds of An ochus Soter (3rd
century BC) by Simonides of Magnesia; and Thessalic History, Achaean
History, and Messenian History by Rhianus of Crete (3rd century BC). As the
greatest epic poet, however, Homer con nued to be performed in rhapsodic
contexts and was read in schools through the Classical, Hellenis c, and
Greco-Roman periods.
Didac c poetry was not regarded by the Greeks as a form dis nct from epic.
Yet the poet Hesiod belonged to an altogether different world from Homer.
He lived in Boeo a in central Greece about 700 BC. In his Works and Days
he described the ways of peasant life and incidentally described the dreary
Boeo an plain afflicted by heat, cold, and the oppression of a “gi -
devouring” aristocracy. He believed passionately in a Zeus who cared about
right and wrong and in Jus ce as Zeus’s daughter. Hesiod’s other surviving
poem, the Theogony, a empts a systema c genealogy of the gods and
recounts many myths associated with their part in the crea on of the
universe.

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Lyric poetry
Hesiod, unlike Homer, told something of himself, and the same is true of the
lyric poets. Except for Pindar and Bacchylides at the end of the Classical
period, only fragments of the works of these poets survive. There had
always been lyric poetry in Greece. All the great events of life as well as
many occupa ons had their proper songs, and here too the way was open
to advance from the anonymous to the individual poet.
The word lyric covers many sorts of poems. On the one hand, poems sung
by individuals or chorus to the lyre, or some mes to the aulos (double-reed
pipe), were called melic; elegiacs, in which the epic hexameter, or verse line
of six metrical feet, alternated with a shorter line, were tradi onally
associated with lamenta on and an aulos accompaniment; but they were
also used for personal poetry, spoken as well as sung at the table. Iambics
(verse of iambs, or metrical units, basically of four alternately short and
long syllables) were the verse form of the lampoon. Usually of an abusive or
sa rical—burlesque and parodying—character, they were not normally
sung.
If Archilochus of Paros in fact was wri ng as early as 700 BC, he was the first
of the post-epic poets. The fragments reflect the turbulent life of an
embi ered adventurer. Scorn both of men and of conven on is the emo on
that seems uppermost, and Archilochus was possessed of tremendous
powers of invec ve. Of lesser stature than Archilochus were his successors,
Semonides (o en mistakenly iden fied with Simonides) of Amorgos and
Hipponax of Ephesus.
Like the iambic writers, the elegiac poets came mostly from the islands and
the Ionian regions of Asia Minor. Chief among them were Callinus of
Ephesus and Mimnermus of Colophon. On the mainland of Greece, Tyrtaeus
roused the spirit of the Spartans in their desperate struggle with the
Messenian rebels in the years a er 650. His mar al poems are perhaps of
more historical than literary interest. The same is to some extent true of the
poems in elegiac, iambic, and trochaic (the la er a metre basically of four
alternately long and short syllables) metres by Solon, an Athenian
statesman, who used his poetry as a vehicle for propaganda. Xenophanes
(born about 560 BC) rather in the same way used his poems to propagate
his revolu onary religious and ethical ideas. The elegiacs a ributed to
Theognis seem to be poems of various dates suitable for use at drinking
par es. Many of them were actually by Theognis himself (about 540 BC).
Some give uninhibited expression to his hatred of the lower class rulers who
had ousted the aristocracy of Megara; others are love poems to the boy
Cyrnus; s ll others are gnomic commonplaces of Greek wisdom and
morality.

Britannica Quiz
Ancient Greek Literature Quiz

About the beginning of the 6th century a new kind of poetry made its
appearance in the island of Lesbos. It was composed in the local Aeolic
dialect by members of the turbulent and fac ous aristocracy. Alcaeus (born
about 620 BC), absorbed in poli cal feuds and in civil war, expressed with
striking directness searing hate and blind exulta on. With the same
directness and stunning grace, Sappho, a contemporary who seems to have
enjoyed a freedom unknown to the women of mainland Greece, told of her
love for girls named in her poems. The surviving works by their successor in
personal lyric, Anacreon of Teos, suggest a more convivial amorousness.
Choral lyric was associated with the Dorian parts of the Greek mainland and
the se lements in Sicily and south Italy, whereas poetry for solo
performance was a product of the Ionian coast and the Aegean Islands.
Thus choral song came to be conven onally wri en in a Doric dialect.
Choral lyric, which had lyre and aulos accompaniments, was highly
complicated in structure. It did not use tradi onal lines or stanzas; but the
metre was formed afresh for each poem and never used again in exactly the
same form, though the metrical units from which the stanzas, or strophes,
were built up were drawn from a common stock and the form of the
strophe was usually related to the accompanying dance. This elaborate art
form was connected mainly with the cult of the gods or, as in the case of
Pindar, the celebra on of the victors in the great Hellenic games.
The earliest poet of choral lyrics of whose work anything has survived was
Alcman of Sparta (about 620 BC). Somewhat later Stesichorus worked in
Sicily, and his lyric versions of the great myths marked an important stage in
the development of these stories. Simonides of Ceos, in Ionia, was among
the most versa le of Greek poets. He was famed for his pathos, but today
he is best known for his elegiac epitaphs, especially those on the Greek
soldiers who fell in the struggle against Persia.
The supreme poet of choral lyric was Pindar from Thebes in Boeo a (born
518 or possibly 522–died a er 446 BC), who is known mainly by his odes in
honour of the victors at the great games held at Olympia, Delphi, the
Isthmus of Corinth, and Nemea. The last of the lyric poets was Bacchylides
(flourished 5th century BC), whose works too were largely victory odes,
characterized by an exquisite taste for mythical digression.
Tragedy
Tragedy may have developed from the dithyramb, the choral cult song of
the god Dionysus. Arion of Lesbos, who is said to have worked at Corinth in
about 600, is credited with being the first to write narra ve poetry in this
medium. Thespis (6th century BC), possibly combining with dithyrambs
something of the A c ritual of Dionysus of Eleutherae, is credited with
having invented tragedy by introducing an actor who conversed with the
chorus. These performances became a regular feature of the great fes val
of Dionysus at Athens about 534 BC. Aeschylus introduced a second actor,
though his drama was s ll centred in the chorus, to whom, rather than to
each other, his actors directed themselves.
At the tragic contests at the Dionysia each of three compe ng poets
produced three tragedies and a satyr play, or burlesque, in which there was
a chorus of satyrs. Aeschylus, unlike later poets, o en made of his three
tragedies a drama c whole, trea ng a single story, as in the Oresteia, the
only complete trilogy that has survived. His main concern was not drama c
excitement and the portrayal of character but rather the presenta on of
human ac on in rela on to the overriding purpose of the gods.
His successor was Sophocles, who abandoned for the most part the prac ce
of wri ng in unified trilogies, reduced the importance of the chorus, and
introduced a third actor. His work too was based on myth, but whereas
Aeschylus tried to make more intelligible the working of the divine purpose
in its effects on human life, Sophocles was readier to accept the gods as
given and to reveal the values of life as it can be lived within the tradi onal
framework of moral standards. Sophocles’ skill in control of drama c
movement and his mastery of speech were devoted to the presenta on of
the decisive, usually tragic, hours in the lives of men and women at once
“heroic” and human, such as Oedipus.
Euripides, last of the three great tragic poets, belonged to a different world.
When he came to manhood, tradi onal beliefs were scru nized in the light
of what was claimed by Sophist philosophers, not always unjus fiably, to be
reason; and this was a test to which much of Greek religion was highly
vulnerable. The whole structure of society and its values was called into
ques on. This movement of largely destruc ve cri cism was clearly not
uncongenial to Euripides. But as a drama c poet he was bound to draw his
material from myths, which, for him, had to a great extent lost their
meaning. He adapted them to make room for contemporary problems,
which were his real interest. Many of his plays suffer from a certain internal
disharmony, yet his sensibili es and his moments of psychological insight
bring him far closer than most Greek writers to modern taste. There are
studies, wonderfully sympathe c, of wholly unsympathe c ac ons in the
Medea and Hippolytus; a vivid presenta on of the beauty and horror of
religious ecstasy in the Bacchants; in the Electra, a reduc on to absurdity of
the values of a myth that jus fies matricide; in Helen and Iphigenia Among
the Taurians, melodrama with a faint flavour of romance.
Comedy
Like tragedy, comedy arose from a ritual in honour of Dionysus, in this case
full of abuse and obscenity connected with aver ng evil and encouraging
fer lity. The parabasis, the part of the play in which the chorus broke off the
ac on and commented on topical events and characters, was probably a
direct descendant of such revels. The drama c element may have been
derived from the secular Dorian comedy without chorus, said to have arisen
at Megara, which was developed at Syracuse by Epicharmus (c. 530–c. 440).
Akin to this kind of comedy seems to have been the mime, a short realis c
sketch of scenes from everyday life. These were wri en rather later by
Sophron of Syracuse; only fragments have survived but they were important
for their influence on Plato’s dialogue form and on Hellenis c mime. At
Athens, comedy became an official part of the celebra ons of Dionysus in
486 BC. The first great comic poet was Cra nus. About 50 years later
Aristophanes and Eupolis refined somewhat the wild robustness of the
older poet. But even so, for boldness of fantasy, for merciless invec ve, for
unabashed indecency, and for freedom of poli cal cri cism, there is nothing
like the Old Comedy of Aristophanes, whose work alone has survived. Cleon
the poli cian, Socrates the philosopher, Euripides the poet were alike the
vic ms of his masterly unfairness, the first in Knights; the second in Clouds;
and the third in Women at the Thesmophoria and Frogs; whereas in Birds
the Athenian democracy itself was held up to a kindlier ridicule.
Aristophanes survived the fall of Athens in 404, but the Old Comedy had no
place in the revived democracy.
The gradual change from Old to Middle Comedy took place in the early
years of the 4th century. Of Middle Comedy, no fully developed specimen
has survived. It seems to have been dis nguished by the disappearance of
the chorus and of outspoken poli cal cri cism and by the growth of social
sa re and of parody; An phanes and Alexis were the two most
dis nguished writers. The complicated plots in some of their plays led to
the development of the New Comedy at the end of the century, which is
best represented by Menander. One complete play, the Dyscolus, and
appreciable fragments of others are extant on papyrus. New Comedy was
derived in part from Euripidean tragedy; its characteris c plot was a
transla on into terms of city life of the story of the maiden—wronged by a
god—who bears her child in secret, exposes it, and recognizes it years a er
by means of the trinkets she had put into its cradle.

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History
The first great writer of history was Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who was
also a geographer and anthropologist. The theme of his history, wri en in
large part for Athenian readers, is the clash between Europe and Asia
culmina ng in the Persian War. The account of the war itself, which
occupies roughly the second half of the work, must have been composed by
means of laborious inquiry from those whose memories were long enough
to recall events that happened when Herodotus was a child or earlier. The
whole history, though in places badly put together, is magnificent in its
compass and unified by the consciousness of an overriding power keeping
the universe and humankind in check.
Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400) was perhaps the first person to apply a first-class
mind to a prolonged examina on of the nature of poli cal power and the
factors by which policies of states are determined. As a member of the
board of generals he acquired inside knowledge of the way policy is shaped.
A er his failure to save Amphipolis in 424, he spent 20 years in exile, which
he used as an opportunity for ge ng at the truth from both sides. The
result was a history of the war narrowly military and poli cal but of the
most penetra ng quality. Thucydides inves gated the effect on individuals
and na ons both of psychological characteris cs and of chance. His findings
were interpreted through the many speeches given to his characters.
Just as Thucydides had linked his work to the point at which Herodotus had
stopped, so Xenophon (c. 430–died before 350) began his Hellenica where
Thucydides’ unfinished history breaks off in 411. He carried his history down
to 362. His work was superficial by comparison with that of Thucydides, but
he wrote with authority of military affairs and appears at his best in the
Anabasis, an account of his par cipa on in the enterprise of the Greek
mercenary army, with which the Persian prince Cyrus tried to expel his
brother from the throne, and of the adventurous march of the Greeks, a er
the murder of their leaders by the Persians, from near Babylon to the Black
Sea coast. Xenophon also wrote works in praise of Socrates, of whom his
understanding was superficial. No other historical wri ng of the 4th century
has survived except for a substan al papyrus fragment containing a record
of events of the years 396–395.
Rhetoric and oratory
In few socie es has the power of fluent and persuasive speech been more
highly valued than it was in Greece, and even in Homer there are speeches
that are pieces of finished rhetoric. But it was the rise of democra c forms
of government that provided a great incen ve to study and instruc on in
the arts of persuasion, which were equally necessary for poli cal debate in
the assembly and for a ack and defense in the law courts.
The formal study of rhetoric seems to have originated in Syracuse c. 460 BC
with Corax and his pupils Tisias and Gorgias (died c. 376); Gorgias was
influen al also in Athens. Corax is reputed to have been the first to write a
handbook on the art of rhetoric, dealing with such topics as arguments from
probability and the parts into which speeches should be divided. Most of
the Sophists had pretensions as teachers of the art of speaking, especially
Protagoras, who postulated that the weaker of two arguments could by skill
be made to prevail over the stronger, and Prodicus of Ceos.
An phon (c. 480–411), the first professional speech writer, was an
influen al opponent of democracy. Three speeches of his, all dealing with
homicide cases, have been preserved, as have three “tetralogies,” sets of
two pairs of speeches containing the arguments to be used on both sides in
imaginary cases of homicide. In them ideas are expressed concerning
bloodguilt and the duty of vengeance. An phon’s style is bare and rather
crudely an the cal. Gorgias from Sicily, who visited Athens in 427,
introduced an elaborate balance and symmetry emphasized by rhyme and
assonance. Thrasymachus of Chalcedon made a more solid contribu on to
the evolu on of a periodic and rhythmical style.
Andocides (c. 440–died a er 391), an orator who spent much of his life in
exile from Athens, wrote three speeches containing vivid narra ve; but as
an orator he was admi edly amateurish. Lysias (c. 455–died a er 380) lived
at Athens for many years as a resident alien and supported himself by
wri ng speeches when he lost his wealth. His speeches, some of them
wri en for li gants of humble sta on, show dexterous adapta on to the
character of the speaker, though the most interes ng of all is his own a ack
on Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty Tyrants imposed on Athens by the
Spartans in 404 BC.
The 12 extant speeches of Isaeus, who was ac ve in the first half of the 4th
century BC, throw light on aspects of Athenian law. Isocrates, who was
influen al in Athens for half a century before his death in 338, perfected a
periodic prose style that, through the medium of La n, was widely accepted
as a pa ern; and he helped give rhetoric its predominance in the
educa onal system of the ancient world. In his wri ngs, which took the
form of speeches but were more like pamphlets, Isocrates shows some
insight into the poli cal troubles bese ng Greece, with its endless
bickering between ci es incapable of coopera on.
The greatest of the orators was Demosthenes (384–322), supreme in
vehemence and power, though lacking in some of the more delicate
shadings of rhetorical skill. His speeches were mainly poli cal, and he is
best remembered for his energe c opposi on to the rise of Macedonia
under its king Philip II, embodied in the three “Philippics.” A er
Demosthenes, oratory faded, together with the poli cal se ng to which it
owed its preeminence. Three more 4th-century-BC writers need only be
men oned: Aeschines (390–c. 314; the main poli cal opponent of
Demosthenes), Hyperides (c. 390–322), and Lycurgus (c. 390–324).
Philosophical prose
Prose as a medium of philosophy was wri en as early as the 6th century.
Prac oners include Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heracleitus, Anaxagoras,
and Democritus. Philosophical prose was the greatest literary achievement
of the 4th century. It was influenced by Socrates (who himself wrote
nothing) and his characteris c method of teaching by ques on and answer,
which led naturally to the dialogue. Alexamenus of Teos and An sthenes,
both disciples of Socrates, were the first to use it; but the greatest exponent
of Socra c dialogue was the Athenian Plato (428/427–348/347). Shortly
a er Socrates’ death in 399 Plato wrote some dialogues, mostly short; to
this group of work belong the Apology, Protagoras, and Gorgias. In the
decade a er 385 he wrote a series of brilliant works, Phaedo, Phaedrus,
Symposium, and the Republic. His Socrates is the most carefully drawn
character in Greek literature. Subsequent dialogues became more austerely
philosophical; Socrates tended increasingly to be a mere spokesman for
Plato’s thought; and in the last of his works, the Laws, he was replaced by a
colourless “Athenian.” Plato’s style is a thing of matchless beauty, though
ancient cri cs, who were likely to entangle themselves in the rules they had
invented, found it too poe cal.
Plato’s pupil Aristotle (384–322) was admired in an quity for his style; but
his surviving works are all of the “esoteric” sort, intended for use in
connec on with his philosophical and scien fic school, the Lyceum. They
are without literary grace, and at mes they approximate lecture notes. His
works on literary subjects, the Rhetoric, and above all, the Poe cs, had an
immense effect on literary theory a er the Renaissance. In the ancient
world, Aristotelian doctrine was known mainly through the works of his
successor Theophrastus (c. 372–288/287), now lost except for two books on
plants and a famous collec on of 30 Characters, sketches of human types
much imitated by English writers of the 17th century.
Late forms of poetry
The crea ve period of the Hellenis c Age was prac cally contained within
the span of the 3rd century BC. To this period belonged three outstanding
poets: Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius of Rhodes. Theocritus (c.
310–250), born at Syracuse, is best known as the inventor of bucolic mime,
or pastoral poetry, in which he presented scenes from the lives of shepherds
and goatherds in Sicily and southern Italy. He also drama zed scenes from
middle-class life; and in his second idyll the character Simaetha, who tries
by incanta ons to recover the love of the man who has deserted her,
touches the fringe of tragedy. He also used another Hellenis c form, the
epyllion, a short scene of heroic narra ve poetry in which heroic stature is
o en reduced by playful realism and delicate psychology. In his hands the
hexameter a ained a lyric purity and sweetness unrivaled elsewhere. He
was the first of the nature poets, succeeded by Moschus and Bion.
Callimachus (flourished about 260) was a scholar as well as a poet. His most
famous work, of which substan al fragments survive, was the Ai a, an
elegiac poem describing the origins of various rites and customs. It was
heavy with learning but diversified by passages of entertaining narra ve.
His six hymns show immense poe c exper se but no religious feeling, for
the gods of Olympus had long since become obsolete. Callimachus also
wrote epigrams, and fragments survive of iambi (“iambs”). The form was
widely used throughout the 3rd century to denounce the vani es of the
world. Some mes, in a mixture of prose and verse, these pieces had links
with sa re; and their chief exponents were Bion the Borysthenite,
Menippus of Gadara, Cercidas of Megalopolis, and Phoenix of Colophon.
Callimachus avoided epic in favour of the greater intensity possible in
shorter works. The last surviving Classical Greek epic was wri en by his
successor at Alexandria, Apollonius of Rhodes (born about 295). Apollonius’
account of the voyage of the Argonauts is so full of local legend that the
coherence of the poem is lost; but the story of Medea’s wild passion for
Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, is marked by a new sort of roman c
awareness that is fully realized in the episode of Dido’s passion for Aeneas
in Virgil’s Aeneid.
The desire to combine learning with poetry led to the revival of didac c
verse. The Phaenomena of Aratus of Soli (c. 315–c. 245) is a versifica on of
a trea se on the stars by Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 390–c. 340). Chance has
preserved the poems of Nicander (probably 2nd century) on the unlikely
subjects of cures for bites and an dotes to poisons.
The mimes of Herodas (3rd century), short realis c sketches of low life in
iambic verse, have affini es with the non-pastoral mimes of Theocritus.
They perhaps give a hint as to the character of the literature of popular
entertainment, now largely lost. Mime, especially pantomime, was the
main entertainment throughout the early Roman Empire.
A er the middle of the 3rd century, poe c ac vity largely died away,
though the great period of scholarship at Alexandria and at Pergamum was
s ll to come. The names of a few poets are known: Euphorion (born about
275) of Chalcis and Parthenius (flourished 1st century BC), the teacher of
Virgil. Therea er Greek poetry prac cally ceased, apart from a sporadic
revival in the 4th century AD. An excep on exists in the case of
epigramma c poetry in elegiac couplets, surviving mainly in two
compila ons, the Planudean and Pala ne anthologies.

Listen to ar cle7 minutes

Late forms of prose
Almost all of the great mass of Hellenis c prose—and later prose, historical,
scholarly, and scien fic—has perished. Among historians Polybius (c. 200–c.
118 BC), the most outstanding, has survived in a fragmentary condi on.
Present at Rome when it was succumbing to the first influences of Greek
literature, he wrote mainly of events of which he had direct experience,
o en with great insight; his work covered the period from 264 to 146.
Diodorus Siculus’ universal history (1st century BC) is important for the
sources quoted there. The most considerable of lost historians was Timaeus
(c. 356–c. 260), whose history of the Greeks in the west down to 264
provided Polybius with his star ng point. Later historians were Dionysius of
Halicarnassus (flourished about 20 BC); Appian of Alexandria (2nd century
AD), who wrote on Rome and its conquests; and Arrian (c. AD 96–c. 180)
from Bithynia, who is the most valuable source on Alexander the Great.
The most important works of cri cism, of which li le has survived, were by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the obscure Longinus. Longinus’ trea se On
the Sublime (c. AD 40) is excep onal in its penetra ng analysis of crea ve
literature. The Bibliotheca a ributed to Apollodorus (c. 180 BC) is a handy
compendium of mythology.
Scien fic work such as the astronomy and geography of Eratosthenes (c.
276–c. 194) of Alexandria is known mainly from later summaries; but much
that was wri en by the mathema cians, especially Euclid (flourished c. 300
BC) and Archimedes (c. 287–212), has been preserved.
Much survives of the wri ngs of the physician Galen (AD 129–199). His
contemporary Sextus Empiricus is an important source for the history of
Greek philosophy. The survey of the Mediterranean by Strabo in the me of
Augustus preserved much valuable informa on; and so, in a more limited
field, did the descrip on of Greece by Pausanias (2nd century AD). Greek
achievement in astronomy and geography was summed up in the work of
Ptolemy of Alexandria in the 2nd century AD.
Greek became the language of the large se lement of Jews at Alexandria,
and the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, was completed
by about the end of the 2nd century BC. Much of the Apocrypha was
composed in Greek, and the New Testament was wri en in popular Greek
(Koine). Of the early Chris an writers in Greek the most notable were
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150–c. 215) and Origen (c. AD 185–c. 254),
together with Clement I and Igna us of An och.
The Parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans by Plutarch (c. AD 46–c.
119) of Chaeronea in Boeo a was for centuries one of the forma ve books
for educated Europeans. Great figures from an idealized past are presented
for the edifica on of the lesser people of his own day; and the anecdotes
with which the Lives abound are of various degrees of credibility. They
belong to biography rather than to history, though they are an important
source for historians. A number of shorter works on a wide variety of
subjects have come down under the La n tle Moralia (Greek Ethica),
which show the intellectual de of Greece on the ebb.
There was much concern over a ques on that had been argued ever since
the days when Athens had ceased to be a free city: to what extent was A c
prose a norm that writers and especially orators were bound to follow?
Many had shunned it in favour of a more ornamental Asia c style. But at
the end of the 1st century AD there was a revival of the A c dialect.
Speeches and essays were wri en for wide circula on. This revival is known
as the Second Sophis c movement, and chief among its writers were Dion
Chrysostom (1st century AD), Aelius Aris des (2nd century), and
Philostratus (early 3rd century). The only writer of consequence, however,
was Lucian (c. 120–c. 190). His works are mainly slight and sa rical; but his
gi of humour, even though repe ve, cannot be denied. Lives and
Opinions of Eminent Philosophers was a valuable work of the 3rd century
by Diogenes Laër us, a writer otherwise unknown.
Philosophical ac vity in the early empire was mainly confined to
moralizings based on Stoicism, a philosophy advoca ng a life in harmony
with nature and indifference to pleasure and pain. Epictetus (born about AD
55) influenced especially the philosophic Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius
(121–180), whose Medita ons have taken their place beside works of
Chris an devo on. Many of Plutarch’s Moralia were Platonic, with vaguely
mys cal tendencies; but Plo nus (c. 205–260/270) was the last major
thinker in the Classical world, giving new direc on to Platonic and
Pythagorean mys cism.
The latest crea on of the Greek genius was the novel, or ero c romance. It
may have originated as early as the 1st century BC; but its roots reach back
to such plays of triumphant love as the lost Andromeda of Euripides, to the
New Comedy, to Xenophon’s daydreams about the educa on of Cyrus, and
to the largely fic ous narra ves that were one extreme of what passed for
history from the 3rd century BC onward. Of these last, the best known
examples are the Alexander romances, a wildly distorted and embroidered
version of the exploits of Alexander the Great, which supplied some of the
favourite reading of the Middle Ages. Ero c elegy and epigram may have
contributed something and so may the lost Milesian Tales of Aris des of
Miletus (c. 100 BC), though these last appear to have depended on a
pornographic interest that is almost completely absent from the Greek
romances. Only fragments survive of the Ninus romance (dealing with the
love of Ninus, legendary founder of Nineveh), which was probably of the 1st
century BC; but full-length works survive by Chariton (2nd century AD),
Achilles Ta us (2nd century AD), Xenophon of Ephesus (2nd or 3rd century
AD), and Heliodorus (3rd century AD or later). All deal with true lovers
separated by innumerable obstacles of human wickedness and natural
catastrophe and then finally united. Daphnis and Chloe by Longus (between
2nd and 3rd century AD) stands apart from the others because of its
pastoral, rather than quasi-historical, se ng. The works of Dictys Cretensis
and Dares Phrygius belong to the same period. They claim to give a
pre-Homeric account of the Trojan War. The Greek originals are almost
wholly lost, but the La n version was for the Middle Ages the main source
for the story of Troy. (See also Hellenis c romance.)
Donald William LucasThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Listen to ar cle10 minutes

Byzan ne literature
General characteris cs
Byzan ne literature may be broadly defined as the Greek literature of the
Middle Ages, whether wri en in the territory of the Byzan ne Empire or
outside its borders. By late an quity many of the classical Greek genres,
such as drama and choral lyric poetry, had long been obsolete, and all Greek
literature affected to some degree an archaizing language and style,
perpetuated by a long-established system of educa on in which rhetoric
was a leading subject. The Greek Church Fathers were the products of this
educa on and shared the literary values of their pagan contemporaries.
Consequently the vast and imposing Chris an literature of the 3rd to 6th
centuries, which established a synthesis of Hellenic and Chris an thought,
was largely wri en in a language already far removed from that spoken by
all classes in everyday life, and indeed from that of the New Testament. This
diglossy—the use of two very different forms of the same language for
different purposes—marked Byzan ne culture for 1,000 years; but the
rela ons between the high and low forms changed with the centuries. The
pres ge of the classicizing literary language remained undiminished un l
the end of the 6th century; only some popular saints’ lives and world
chronicles escaped its influence. In the ensuing two and a half centuries,
when the very existence of the Byzan ne Empire was threatened, city life
and educa on declined, and with them the use of classicizing language and
style. With the poli cal recovery of the 9th and 10th centuries began a
literary revival, in which a conscious a empt was made to recreate the
Hellenic-Chris an culture of late an quity. Simple or popular language was
despised; many of the early saints’ lives were rewri en in inflated and
archaizing language and style. By the 12th century the cultural
self-assurance of the Byzan nes enabled them to develop new literary
genres, including roman c fic on, in which adventure and love are the main
mo fs, and sa re, which occasionally made use of imita ons of spoken
Greek. The period from the Fourth Crusade (1204) to the capture of
Constan nople by the O oman Turks (1453) saw both a vigorous revival of
narrowly imita ve, classicizing literature, as the Byzan nes sought to assert
their cultural superiority over the militarily and economically more
powerful West, and at the same me the beginning of a flourishing
literature in an approxima on to vernacular Greek. But this vernacular
literature was limited to poe c romances, popular devo onal wri ng, and
the like. All serious wri ng con nued to make use of the pres gious
archaizing language of learned tradi on.
Byzan ne literature’s two sources, classical and Chris an, each provided a
series of models and references for the Byzan ne writer and reader. O en
both were referred to side by side: for example, the emperor Alexius
Comnenus defended his seizure of church property to pay his soldiers by
referring to the precedents of Pericles and the biblical king David. Much of
Byzan ne literature was didac c in tone, and o en in content too. And
much of it was wri en for a limited group of educated readers, who could
be counted upon to understand every classical or biblical allusion and to
appreciate every figure of rhetoric. Some Byzan ne genres would not be
considered of literary interest today, but instead seem to belong to the
domain of technical wri ng. This is true in par cular of the voluminous
wri ngs of the Church Fathers, such as Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus,
Basil, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Maximus the Confessor.
Principal forms of wri ng
Nonliturgical poetry
Poetry con nued to be wri en in classical metres and style. But the sense
of appropriateness of form to content was lost. An example is the
transi onal work of Nonnus, a 5th-century Egyp an-born Greek who
eventually converted to Chris anity. His long poem Dionysiaca was
composed in Homeric language and metre, but it reads as an extended
panegyric on Dionysus rather than as an epic. Nonnus is plausibly credited
with a paraphrase, in similar metre and style, of the Gospel According to St.
John, thereby fusing classical and Chris an tradi ons. Several short
narra ve poems in Homeric verse, of mythological content, were composed
by contemporaries of Nonnus. Paul the Silen ary in the mid-6th century
used the same Homeric form for a long descrip ve poem on the Church of
the Divine Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) in Constan nople. Many brief occasional
poems were wri en in hexameters or elegiac couplets un l the late 6th
century. But changes in the phonology of Greek, and perhaps declining
educa onal standards, made these metres difficult to handle. A cleric,
George the Pisidian, wrote long narra ve poems on the wars of the
emperor Heraclius (610–641), as well as a poem on the six days of the
crea on, in iambic trimeters (12-syllable lines, consis ng in principle of
three pairs of iambic feet, each of a short syllable followed by a long). His
example was followed by Theodosius the Deacon in his epic on the
recapture of Crete from the Arabs in the 10th century. This 12-syllable line
became the all-purpose metre in the middle and later Byzan ne periods
and was the vehicle for narra ve, epigram, romance, sa re, and moral and
religious edifica on. From the 11th century it found a rival in a 15-syllable
stressed line, which was used by the monk Symeon the New Theologian in
many of his mys cal hymns and which became a vehicle for court poetry in
the 12th century. It was also used by the metropolitan Constan ne
Manasses for his world chronicle and by the anonymous redactor of the
epic romance of Digenis Akritas. It was in this metre, which followed no
classical models, that the early vernacular poems were wri en, such as the
romances of Callimachus and Chrysorrhoe, Belthandros and Chrysantza, the
Byzan ne Achilleid (the hero of which has nothing in common with Homer’s
Achilles but his name), and the Romance of Belisarius. These are the most
significant works of genuine fic on in Byzan ne literature. Many of these
poems were adapta ons or imita ons of medieval Western models:
examples are Phlorios and Platziaphlora (the Old French Floire et
Blancheflor), Imberios and Margarona, and Apollonius of Tyre, each a
roman c narra ve. The epic genre is represented by a long unpublished
poem on the Trojan War, adapted from the Roman de Troie of the
12th-century French poet Benoît de Sainte-Maure. This openness to the
La n West was new. But even when they were based on Western models,
Byzan ne poems differed in tone and expression from their exemplars.
Most of this vernacular poetry cannot be dated more precisely than to the
13th or 14th century.
Much Byzan ne poetry is rather unimagina ve, long-winded, and tedious.
But some poets show a genuine vein of inspira on, for instance, John
Geometres (10th century) or John Mauropous (11th century), or remarkable
technical brilliance, such as Theodore Prodromus (12th century), or Manuel
Philes (14th century). The ability to write passable verse was widespread in
literate Byzan ne society, and poetry—or versifica on—was greatly
appreciated.
Liturgical poetry
From the earliest mes song—and short rhythmic stanzas (troparia) in
par cular—had formed part of the liturgy of the church. Poems in classical
metre and style were composed by Chris an writers from Clement of
Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus to Sophronius of Jerusalem. But the
pagan associa ons of the genre, as well as the difficul es of the metre,
made them unacceptable for general liturgical use. In the 6th century
elaborate rhythmical poems (kontakia) replaced the simpler troparia. They
owed much to Syriac liturgical poetry. In form the kontakion was a series of
up to 22 rhythmical stanzas, all constructed on the same accentual pa ern
and ending with the same short refrain. In content it was a narra ve homily
on an event of biblical history or an episode in the life of a saint. There was
o en a marked drama c element. Rich in imagery, complex in structure,
and infinitely variable in rhythm, the new liturgical poetry can be compared
with the choral lyric of ancient Greece. The greatest composer of kontakia
was Romanos Melodos (Romanos the Melode; early 6th century), a Syrian
probably of Jewish origin. In the late 7th century the kontakion was
replaced by a longer liturgical poem, the kanōn, consis ng of eight or nine
odes, each of many stanzas and each having a different rhythmic and
melodic form. The kanōn was a hymn of praise rather than a homily. Its
great length encouraged repe on and infla on, and a more ornamental
style of singing enhanced the importance of the music at the expense of the
words. The most noteworthy composers of kanones were Andrew of Crete,
John of Damascus, Theodore Studites, Joseph the Hymnographer, and John
Mauropous. No new hymns were added to the liturgy a er the 11th
century, but kanones con nued to be composed as a literary exercise. The
original music of kontakia and kanones alike is lost.

Listen to ar cle8 minutes

Historical works
Conscious as they were of their classical and biblical past, the Byzan nes
wrote much history. Un l the early 7th century a series of historians
recounted the events of their own me in classicizing style, with fic ous
speeches and set descrip ve pieces, in a genre that owed much to the
classical Greek historians Thucydides and Polybius. Procopius, Agathias,
Peter the Patrician, Menander Protector, and Theophylactus Simoca es
each took up where a predecessor le off. Therea er this vein virtually ran
dry for 250 years. The revival of cultural confidence and poli cal power in
the late 9th century saw a revival of classicizing history, with an interest in
human character—Plutarch was o en the model—and the causes of events.
Joseph Genesius in the 10th century and the group of historical writers
known collec vely as the Con nuators of Theophanes recorded, not
without par ality, the origin and early days of the Macedonian dynasty.
From then un l the later 14th century there was never a genera on without
its historian. The most noteworthy historians were Symeon the Logothete
and Leo the Deacon in the 10th century; Michael Psellus, Michael
A aleiates, and John Scylitzes in the 11th century; Anna Comnena, John
Cinnamus, and Nicetas Choniates in the 12th century; George Acropolites
and George Pachymeres in the 13th century; and Nicephorus Gregoras and
the emperor John Cantacuzenus in the 14th century. The last days of the
Byzan ne Empire were recounted from very different points of view by
George Sphrantzes, the writer known simply as Ducas (who was a member
of the former Byzan ne imperial house of that name), Laonicus
Chalcocondyles, and Michael Critobulus in the second half of the 15th
century.
Another kind of interest in the past was sa sfied by world chronicles,
beginning with the crea on or some early biblical event. O en naively
theological in their explana on of causes, black-and-white in their depic on
of character, and popular in language, they helped the ordinary Byzan ne to
locate himself in a scheme of world history that was also a history of
salva on. The Chronographia of John Malalas in the 6th century and the
Paschal Chronicle (Chronicon Paschale) in the 7th century were succeeded
by those of Patriarch Nicephorus at the end of the 8th century, Theophanes
the Confessor in the early 9th century, and George the Monk in the late 9th
century. Such chronicles con nued to be wri en in later centuries,
some mes with cri cal and literary pretensions, as in the case of John
Zonaras, or in vaguely roman cized form in verse, as in the case of
Constan ne Manasses.
The importance that Byzan ne rulers a ached to history is a ested by the
vast historical encyclopaedia compiled on the orders of Constan ne VII
(913–959) in 53 volumes, of which only meagre fragments remain.
Rhetoric
Though there was no opportunity for poli cal or forensic oratory in the
Byzan ne world, the taste for rhetoric and the apprecia on of
well-structured language, choice figures of speech and thought, and skillful
delivery remained undiminished in Byzan ne society. From the 10th century
onward survives a vast body of encomiums, funeral ora ons, memorial
speeches, inaugural lectures, addresses of welcome, celebra ons of victory,
and miscellaneous panegyrics. This outpouring of polished rhetoric played
an important role in the forma on and control of public opinion in the
limited circles where opinions ma ered and occasionally served as a vehicle
of genuine poli cal controversy. To this same domain belong the myriad
Byzan ne le ers, o en collected and edited by their author or a friend.
These le ers were not intended to be either private or informa ve—real
informa on was conveyed orally by the bearer—but they were important in
maintaining networks of contact among the elite as well as in providing
refined aesthe c pleasure.
Robert Browning
Modern Greek literature (a er 1453)
Post-Byzan ne period
A er the Turkish capture of Constan nople in 1453, Greek literary ac vity
con nued almost exclusively in those areas of the Greek world under
Vene an rule. Thus Cyprus, un l its capture by the Turks in 1571, produced
a body of literature in the local dialect, including the 15th-century prose
chronicle Recital Concerning the Sweet Land of Cyprus by León os
Machairás and a collec on of transla ons and imita ons in elaborate verse
forms of Italian poems by Petrarch and others. Crete, which remained in
Vene an hands un l 1669, became the centre of the greatest flowering of
Greek literature between the fall of Constan nople and the founda on of
the modern Greek state. There a number of authors developed the Cretan
dialect into a rich and subtle medium of expression. In it were wri en a
number of tragedies and comedies, a single pastoral tragicomedy, and a
single, anonymous religious drama, The Sacrifice of Abraham, mostly based
on Italian models. The leading playwright was Geórgios Chortátsis. About
1600 Vitséntzos Kornáros composed his romance, Erōtokritos (Eng. trans.,
Erotocritos). These Cretan authors composed their works almost en rely in
the 15-syllable iambic verse of the Greek folk song, whose modes of
expression influenced them deeply.
In the O oman-ruled areas of Greece the folk song, which concisely and
unsen mentally conveyed the aspira ons of the Greek people of the me,
became prac cally the sole form of literary expression.
Toward the end of the 18th century, however, a number of intellectuals
emerged who, under the influence of European ideas, set about raising the
level of Greek educa on and culture and laying the founda ons of an
independence movement. The par cipants in this “Greek Enlightenment”
also brought to the fore the language problem, each promo ng a different
form of the Greek language for use in educa on. The leading Greek
intellectual of the early 19th century was the classical scholar Adamán os
Koraïs, who in voluminous wri ngs on Greek language and educa on,
argued for a form of Modern Greek “corrected” according to the ancient
rules.
Independence and a er
Old Athenian School
The Greek state established as a result of the Greek War of Independence
(1821–29) consisted only of a small sec on of the present-day Greek
mainland and a few islands. Athens, which became the capital of Greece in
1834, soon came to be the chief cultural centre, gathering together writers
from various areas, par cularly Constan nople. The Soútsos brothers,
Aléxandros and Panayó s, introduced the novel into Greece, but they are
best known for their Roman c poetry, which as me went by moved
gradually away from the Demo c (“popular”), or commonly spoken,
language toward the Katharevusa (“purist”) form ins tu onalized by Koraïs.
The work of these writers, which relied greatly on French models, looks
back to the War of Independence and the glorious ancient past. Their
melancholy sen mentality was not shared by Aléxandros Rízos Rangavís, a
verbose but versa le and not inconsiderable cra sman of Katharevusa in
lyric and narra ve poetry, drama, and the novel. By the 1860s and ’70s,
however, Athenian poetry was generally of poor quality and was dominated
by a sense of despair and longing for death. In the period 1830–80, prose
was dominated by two opposing trends: the historical novel a empted to
present a glorious picture of the Greek past while novels set in the present
tended to be sa rical or picaresque in nature. Emmanuel Roídis’ novel I
Pápissa Ioánna (1866; Pope Joan) is a hilarious sa re on medieval and
modern religious prac ces as well as a pas che of the historical novel.
Pávlos Kalligás, in Thános Vlékas (1855), treated contemporary problems
such as brigandage. In Loukís Láras (1879; Eng. trans., Loukis Laras)
Dimítrios Vikélas presented a less heroic view of the War of Independence.

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Heptanesian School
Meanwhile more interes ng developments had been taking place in the
Ionian Islands (Heptanesos). During the 1820s two poets from the island of
Zacynthus made their name with patrio c poems celebra ng the War of
Independence. One of these, Andréas Kálvos, who composed his odes in
neoclassical form and archaic language, never wrote poetry a erward,
while the other, Dhionísios Solomós, went on to become one of the greatest
of modern Greek poets. Dealing with the themes of liberty, love, and death,
Solomós embodied a profoundly Roman c sensibility in extraordinary
fragments of lyrical intensity, which gave a new pres ge to the Demo c
language. Solomós’ followers con nued to cul vate the Demo c,
par cularly Antónios Mátesis, whose historical social drama, O vasilikós
(1859; “The Basil Plant”), was the first prose work of any length to be
wri en in the Demo c. Aristotélis Valaorí s con nued the Heptanesian
tradi on with long patrio c poems inspired by the Greek na onal struggles.
Demo cism and folklorism, 1880–1922
From the 1880s onward the New Athenian School, inspired by the revived
interest in folklore as a survival of ancient Greek culture, began to react
against the sterile bombast of the Katharevusa versifiers, producing instead
a more in mate poetry based on the language, customs, and beliefs of the
Greek peasantry, and in par cular on Greek folk songs.
The leading ideologist of this “demo cist” movement, which aimed to
promote tradi onal popular culture at the expense of the pseudo-archaic
pedantry fashionable in Athens, was Yánnis Psicháris (Jean Psichari), whose
book My Journey (1888) was partly a fic onalized account of a journey
around the Greek world and partly a belligerent manifesto arguing that the
Demo c language should be officially adopted as a ma er of na onal
urgency. The demo cist movement inspired poets to enrich the Greek
popular tradi on with influences from abroad. Chief among these was
Kos s Palamás, who dominated the literary scene for several decades with
a large output of essays and ar cles and whose best poetry appeared
between 1900 and 1910. In his lyric and epic poems he a empted to
synthesize ancient Greek history and mythology with the Byzan ne
Chris an tradi on and modern Greek folklore in order to demonstrate the
essen al unity of Greek culture. Angelos Sikelianós con nued this
enterprise in effusive and powerful lyric poetry of a profoundly mys cal
nature.
In prose, the folklore cult fostered development of the short story, wri en
ini ally in Katharevusa, with Demo c gradually taking over in the 1890s.
These stories, and the novels that accompanied them, depicted scenes of
tradi onal rural life, some mes idealized and some mes viewed cri cally
by their authors. The pioneer of the Greek short story, Geórgios Vizyenós,
combined autobiography with an effec ve use of psychological analysis and
suspense. The most famous and prolific short-story writer, Aléxandros
Papadiamándis, produced a wealth of evoca ons of his na ve island of
Skiáthos imbued with a profound sense of Chris an tradi on and a
compassion for country folk; his novel I fónissa (1903; The Murderess) is a
fine study in psychological abnormality. The novel O zi ános (1896; The
Beggar), by Andréas Karkavítsas, sa rically depicts the economic and
cultural depriva on of the rural popula on. From about 1910 this cri cal
a tude is further reflected in the prose wri ng of Konstan nos
Chatzópoulos and Konstan nos Theotókis. Meanwhile Grigórios
Xenópoulos wrote novels with an urban se ng and devoted considerable
effort to drama, a medium that received a substan al boost from the
demo cist movement.
One major figure defies categoriza on for it was outside Greece, in
Alexandria, that Constan ne Cavafy lived and wrote. His finely wrought,
epigramma c poems, with their tragically ironic views of Hellenis c and
Byzan ne history, contain daring, sensuous glimpses of homosexual love.
Literature a er 1922
The Asia Minor Disaster of 1922, in which Greece’s expansionist designs on
the O oman Empire were finally thwarted, brought about a radical change
in the orienta on of Greek literature. Before commi ng suicide in 1928,
Kóstas Kariotákis wrote some bi erly sarcas c poetry conveying the gap
between the old ideals and the new reality.
The reac on against the defea sm of 1922 came with the Genera on of
1930, a group of writers who began publishing around that date. They
reinvigorated Greek literature by discarding the old verse forms in poetry
and by producing ambi ous novels that were intended to embody the spirit
of the mes. Both poets and novelists sought to combine European
influences with the best of what was Greek. The restrained poetry of
George Seféris skillfully married references to ancient mythology with
pensive medita on on man’s modern situa on, while his finely wri en
essays recast the Greek tradi on according to his own priori es. Odysseus
Elý s celebrated the Aegean scenery as an ideal world of sensual
enjoyment and moral purity. Each of these poets won the Nobel Prize for
Literature, Seféris in 1963 and Elý s in 1979. Yánnis Rítsos adopted various
new modes of wri ng in his celebra on of the Greek par sans in World War
II, in long drama c monologues spoken by characters from Greek
mythology, and in laconic poems depic ng everyday, but o en ironically
presented, scenes.
The Genera on of 1930 produced some remarkable novels, among them
Strá s Myrivílis’ I zoí en tafo (1930; Life in the Tomb), a journal of life in the
trenches in World War I; Argo (2 vol., 1933 and 1936) by Yórgos Theotokás,
about a group of students a emp ng to find their way through life in the
turbulent 1920s; and Eroica (1937) by Kosmás Polí s, about the first
encounter of a group of well-to-do schoolboys with love and death.
A er World War II prose wri ng was dominated by novels reflec ng the
experiences of the Greeks during eight years of war (1941–49). Yánnis
Berá s recounted his experiences of 1941 in an unemo onal manner in To
Platy Potami (1946; “The Broad River”). In a trilogy of novels en tled
Akyvérnites poli es (1960–65; Dri ing Ci es), Stra s Tsírkas masterfully
recreated the atmosphere of the Middle East in World War II. In the short
story, Dimítris Chatzís painted ironic portraits of real and fic onal characters
in his na ve Ioánnina in the period before and during World War II,
exposing their self-interested machina ons.

Kazantzákis, Níkos
Bust of Níkos Kazantzákis in Athens.
Nevertheless, the most famous novelist of the period, the Cretan Níkos
Kazantzákis, was a survivor from an earlier genera on. In a series of novels,
beginning with Víos ke poli a tou Aléxi Zorbá (1946; Zorba the Greek) and
con nuing with his masterpiece O Christos xanastavronete (1954; Christ
Recrucified), he embodied a synthesis of ideas from various philosophies
and religions in larger-than-life characters who wrestle with great problems,
such as the existence of God and the purpose of human life. Kazantzákis
had earlier published his 33,333-line Odísia (1938; Odyssey), an epic poem
taking up the story of Odysseus where Homer had le off. Pandelís
Prevelákis published a number of philosophical novels set in his na ve
Crete, the most successful being O ílios tou thanátou (1959; The Sun of
Death), which shows a boy learning to come to terms with death.
During the 1960s Greek prose writers a empted to explore the historical
factors underlying the contemporary social and poli cal situa on. In the
novel To tríto stefáni (1962; The Third Wedding) by Kóstas Tachtsís, the
female narrator tells the story of her life with venomous verve, unwi ngly
exposing the oppressive nature of the Greek family. Yórgos Ioánnou’s
part-fic onal, part-autobiographical short prose pieces present a vivid
picture of life in Thessaloníki (Salonika) and Athens from the 1930s to the
1980s.
The 1980s saw the novel take over from poetry as the most pres gious
genre in Greek literature. At the turn of the 21st century, many of the most
successful new novelists were women, and some of the best novels
presented an ironic challenge to tradi onal no ons of historical truth. The
novel also a racted poets and playwrights who saw in it the means of
gaining popular success.
No individual poets of the postwar genera ons tower above the rest;
among the first postwar genera on, Tákis Sinópoulos, Míltos Sachtoúris,
and Manólis Anagnostákis, all marked by their war me experiences of the
1940s, are among those with the greatest reputa ons. The Genera on of
1970, in which female and male poets played an equal part, came of age
during the military dictatorship of 1967–74. Their poetry is characterized by
the challenge it makes to social conformity, but it also shows the influence
of the moderniza on and globaliza on of Greek culture. This poetry, which
is typically ironic, avoids tradi onal lyricism and (with some excep ons)
rural imagery.
Peter A. Mackridge
Eupolis