Greek Literature

From a literary perspective, there is very little the Greeks did not invent. Philosophy, politics, and science on the one hand, and drama, poetry, and novels on the other—while all these genres may not have originated in ancient Greece, they were certainly perfected there. Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel may have thought history was an endless progress, but their intricate tracts were no improvement on Aristotle or Plato; and while Shakespeare may have found new ways of expressing human emotion, he lifted many of his plots freely from those of the Greek tragedians.

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes said there is nothing new under the sun. The history of literature since the Greek era certainly supports this claim. While modern critics make a big show of disagreeing with Aristotle's art theory, the fact is they're still responding to his ideas more than two millennia later, making their supposed originality a debatable point. Plato's Republic is still cited in discussions of government and political theory; Oedipus Rex is still one of the best examples of a tragedy; almost any well-read person has read The Iliad and The Odyssey.

In Poetics (the first known example of literary criticism), Aristotle identifies a number of elements every work needs to be considered good or satisfactory. He deals with drama, contending that a good playwright observes the unities (action takes place through the course of a single day in a single place), that tragedy is superior to comedy, and that dialogue should reflect the attitudes and morals of the characters. Perhaps his most important (and controversial) ideas, however, concerned the purpose of art.

Art has the power to affect both the emotions and the intellect. Aristotle identified the mission of all good art as twofold: to delight and instruct (on an intellectual level), and to provide catharsis (on an emotional level). To delight, art must be aesthetically pleasing, meaning that its individual elements should cohere, its message should be consistent, and it should present whatever ideas the author intends with style and grace. To instruct, art must include an underlying message (or messages) that the audience can identify and that will fuel thought and (ideally) action.

Catharsis is more personal and more complicated. A good poem or play or novel should cause the reader or listener to purge negative emotion through projecting them on the characters encountered in the work. People are naturally disposed to negative behavior, but a good play can help them experience vicariously acts they would ordinarily commit on their own. All these elements of art are capable of moderating and bettering society, as long as the artists wield their influence properly.

Perhaps the reason we still read Homer and Euripides and Aristophanes is that each of them managed to delight, instruct, and provide positive catharsis that still speaks to the universal human condition. Of course, Greek thinkers were not united in this evaluation: Plato suggested that poets were pernicious, and should be cast from the midst of a perfect society, along with their works. But his was the minority opinion, and most Greeks recognized the power of the written word to shape men's thoughts and lives toward the ideal of human virtue.

On the other hand, much of Greek literature represents a distinctly humanist worldview, one built on the principles of virtue as simple public obligation, the promotion of man above God (or, in the Greek case, the gods), and the use of reason as the ultimate rule for the attainment of perfection. The Christian view is quite different, built as it is around total reliance on God. And yet, Christians have much to learn from the ideas of Aristotle and many of his fellow Greeks concerning art: that it can be a positive force, that art (particularly literature) does affect each of us, and that poems and novels should project ideas rather than merely provide dumb entertainment.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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54 Items found Print
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Aeschylus I: The Oresteia (old)
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Aeschylus (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from University of Chicago
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Aeschylus II: The Oresteia
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Aeschylus (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
3rd edition from University of Chicago
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$14.00
Aeschylus' Oresteia
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$17.00
Aeschylus' Oresteia
by Aeschylus, translated by Peter Meineck
from Hackett Publishing Company
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.50
Aeschylus' Oresteian Trilogy
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus, translated by Phillip Vellacott
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00 $7.00 (1 in stock)
Bacchae and Other Plays
Penguin Classics
by Euripides (translation by John Davies)
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Tragedy for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$12.00
Bacchae and Other Plays
Penguin Classics
by Euripides (translation by Phillip Vellacott)
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Tragedy for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00
Basic Works of Aristotle
by Aristotle
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$24.00
Euclid's Elements
by Euclid & Sir Thomas Heath (translator)
2nd edition from Green Lion Press
for 10th-Adult
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$29.95
Euripides I
by Euripides
from University of Chicago
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$12.00
Euripides III
by Euripides
2nd edition from University of Chicago
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Euripides: The Trojan Women and Hippolytus
by Euripides
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
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$2.50
Fall of the Roman Republic
by Plutarch, translated by Rex Warner, introduction and notes by Robin Seager
Revised from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$18.00
Five Dialogues of Plato
by Plato, translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by John M. Cooper
2nd edition from Hackett Publishing Company
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
Four Plays by Aristophanes
by Aristophanes
from Meridian Book
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$16.00
Gorgias
Penguin Classics
by Plato
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$10.00
Gorgias
Oxford World's Classics
by Plato
from Oxford University
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$8.95 $6.00 (2 in stock)
Greek Lives
by Plutarch, translated by Robin Waterfield
1st Reissue from Oxford University
Biography for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.95
Histories
Penguin Classics
by Herodotus (translation by Aubrey De Sélincourt)
from Penguin Classics
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00
Histories
Penguin Classics
by Herodotus (translation by Robin Waterfield)
from Oxford University
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
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Histories
Penguin Classics
by Herodotus (translation by David Grene)
from University of Chicago
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$16.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
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$20.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Ancient Literature for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$17.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
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$18.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Caroline Alexander)
from Ecco Press
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$19.99
Iliad & Odyssey
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
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$38.00 (1 in stock)
Iliad of Homer
by Homer (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from University of Chicago
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$15.00
Iliad: A Prose Rendering
by Homer, translated by Wes Callihan
from Roman Roads Media
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$27.99
Landmark Herodotus
by Herodotus (translated by Andrea Purvis & edited by Robert Strassler)
from Random House
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$30.00
Landmark Thucydides
by Thucydides
from Simon and Schuster
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$32.00
Last Days of Socrates
by Plato
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
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$3.00 (2 in stock)
Lysistrata and Other Plays
by Aristophanes
from Penguin Classics
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$12.00
Medea and Other Plays
by Euripides
from Penguin Putnam
Drama for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$11.00
Mythology
by Edith Hamilton
from Little, Brown & Company
Mythology for 7th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$19.99
New Testament
by Richmond Lattimore
from North Point Press
for 9th-Adult
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$25.00
Odyssey
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$19.00
Odyssey
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
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$20.00
Odyssey
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
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$17.00
Odyssey of Homer
by Homer (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from HarperCollins
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$18.99
Odyssey: A Prose Rendering
by Homer, translated by Wes Callihan
from Roman Roads Media
for 10th-Adult
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$27.99
Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides
from University of Chicago
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Persian Expedition
by Xenophon
Revised from Penguin Classics
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$17.00
Plutarch's Lives Volume I
by Plutarch, translated by John Dryden
from Modern Library
Biography for 9th-Adult
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$19.00
Plutarch's Lives Volume II
by Plutarch, translated by John Dryden
from Modern Library
Biography for 11th-Adult
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$20.00
Poetics
by Aristotle
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Philosophy of the Arts for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Republic
by Plato, translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve
from Hackett Publishing Company
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Republic Of Plato
by Plato, translated by Alan Bloom
2nd edition from Basic Books
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$22.99
Rise and Fall of Athens
by Plutarch, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert
from Penguin Classics
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$17.00
Theban Plays
by Sophocles (translation by E. F. Watling)
from Penguin Putnam
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Theban Plays
by Sophocles, excerpts from then translation by Sir George Young
from Dover Publications
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in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.00
Theogony and Works & Days
by Hesiod
from Oxford University
for 10th-Adult
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$11.95 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Theogony and Works & Days
by Hesiod & Theognis, translated by Dorothea Wender
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$14.00
Thirteen Books of the Elements Volume I
by Euclid & Sir Thomas Heath (translator)
2nd edition from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$18.95
Three Theban Plays
by Sophocles (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
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$16.00