Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Greece/Part IV.—Greek Literature.

PART IV.—GREEK LITERATURE.

The history of Greek literature has had three great stages :—the Old Literature, from the earliest times to 529 A.D., when the edict of Justinian closed the schools of pagan philosophy ; the Byzantine Literature, from 529 A.D. to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 ; and the Modern Literature, which may be said to have begun with the satirical poetry of Theodorus Prodromus in the 12th century.

Sections

Section I.—The Old Greek Literature.

I. The Early Literature.

The dialects • Pre-Homeric poetry • Songs of the seasons • Hymns • Epos • The Iliad and the Odyssey • The Homeric question • Cyclic poems • Hesiodic epos • The Homeric Hymns • Transition from epos to elegy • Elegy • Iambic verse • Lyric poetry • Æolian school • Dorian school • Simonides and Pindar

II. The Attic Literature.

Origin of drama • Tragedy • Æschylus • Sophocles • Euripedes • Comedy • Aristophanes • Literary prose • Early prose writers • Herodotus • Thucydides • Xenophon • Oratory • The Attic orators • Demosthenes • Philosophical prose. Plato. Aristotle.

III. The Literature of the Decadence.

Character of the creative life in Greek literature • The transition to Hellenism • The Alexandrian period • Poetry • Erudition and science • Summary • The Græco-Roman period • First part 146-30 B.C. • Second part 30 B.C. to 529 A.D. • Departments of prose literature • Verse • The Anthology

Section II.—The Byzantine Literature.

History • Poetry • Drama • Hymns • Anthology • Prose writings • Commentaries • Grammar • Lexicons • Music and metre • Rhetoric • Philosophy • Theology • Fiction

Section III.—Modern Greek Literature.

Peculiar nature of modern Greek literature • Works in the ancient language • The modern language • Earliest modern Greek works • Neo-Hellenic • The Greeks of the Renaissance before the fall of Constantinople • The Greeks after the fall of Constantinople • Early works in modern Greek. Romantic poems. • Historical poems • Early popular poems • Early prose works • Literature of the 18th century • Modern era • Poets • Sontsos • Rangabé • Other poets • Drama • History • Theology • Philosophy • Law &c. • Fiction • Female authors • Archæology • Philology • Translations • Authorities

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