Introduction to Euro-American Literature Lecture 1 Ancient European Literature Tian Xiangbin.

Introduction toIntroduction toEuro-American LiteratureEuro-American Literature

Lecture 1

Ancient European Literature

Tian Xiangbin

PoetryPoetry

In Western Literature, poetry is the oldest of written art forms.

Poetry has its roots in the oral tradition of our distant ancestors.

Poetry is an integral part of the human condition.

Written or oral, every culture on earth has a poetic tradition.

Poetry is important... It reaches the inside

of the people and heals their wounds like

nothing else can. It is an escape from

reality and a method of coping with

reality. It's a certain feeling inside."

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Ancient Greece

Greek LiteratureGreek MythologyHeroic Epic

• Homer’s epics: Iliad, OdysseyDrama

• Aeschylus (525 BC-456 BC) Agamemnon; Prometheus Desmotes.

• Sophocles (496-406 BC) Oedipus the King• Euripides (485BC-406 BC) Medea• Aristophanes (456-386 BC) The Acharnians

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Ancient Greece

Greek LiteraturePoetry

• Sappho (612-?BC)• Anacreon (582 BC – 485 BC)

Prose • Aesop (ca. 620-564 BC) (fables)• Plato (427-347BC)• Aristotle (384-322BC)

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Ancient Greece: Greek-Latin Mythology

• Zeus/Jupiter 宙斯• Hera/Juno 赫拉• Poseidon/Neptune 波塞东• Apollo/Apollo 阿波罗• Athena/Minerva 雅典娜• Aphrodite/Venus 维纳斯• Ares/Mars 马尔斯• Dionysus/Bacchus 狄俄尼索斯• Hermes/Mercury 赫耳墨斯• Hephaestus/Vulcan赫菲斯托斯• Artemis/Diana阿尔特弥斯• Demeter/Ceres 德墨忒尔

Twelve Olympian DeitiesTwelve Olympian Deities Zeus(Jupiter) 宙斯 ( 朱庇特 ) King of the gods and ruler of Mount Olympus; god of the sky and thunder. Youngest child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. He is a womanizer. Brother and husband of Hera.

Hera (Juno)赫拉（朱诺 ) Queen of the gods and the goddess of marriage and family. Youngest daughter of Cronus and Rhea. She is the wife and sister of Zeus.

Poseidon (Neptune) 波塞东（海王）： one of the twelve Olympian deities of the pantheon in Greek mythology. His main domain is the ocean, and he is called the “God of the Sea”. In the

Iliad ， Poseidon favors the Greeks. second elder brother of Zeus.

Apollo 阿波罗（太阳神） Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities. He is the god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.

Athena (Minerva) 雅典娜 Virgin goddess of wisdom, handicrafts, defence and strategic warfare. Daughter of Zeus and the Oceanid Metis, she rose from her father's head fully grown and in full battle armor after he swallowed her mother. Brave, powerful, kind,merciful

Aphrodite (Venus) 阿佛洛狄特（维纳斯 ) Goddess of love, beauty, and desire. She is the daughter of Zeus and the Oceanid Dione. She married to Hephaestus, but she had many adulterous affairs, most notably with Ares. Cupid is their love son.

Ares (Mars) 阿瑞斯 ( 马尔斯 ) God of war. He is said to Be the son of Zeus and Hera, all the other gods (excludingAphrodite) despised him.

Dionysus (Bacchus) 狄俄尼索斯 Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine in Greek mythology.

Hermes (Mercury) 赫耳墨斯（墨丘利） He was an Olympian god in Greek religion and mythology, son of Zeus and Maia. Hermes was a god of transitions and thieves. He was quick and cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine.

Hephaestus (Vulcan):赫菲斯托斯（乌尔肯） Master blacksmith and craftsman of the gods; god of fire and the forge. Son of Hera, either by Zeus or alone. After he was born, his parents threw him off Mount Olympus because he is very ugly

with camelback. But he married to Aphrodite.

Artemis ( Diana)阿尔特弥斯（狄安娜） Virgin goddess of the hunt, moon, virginity, Archery and all animals, twin sister of Apollo and eldest child of Zeus and Leto.

Demeter (Ceres)德墨忒尔（刻瑞斯） Goddess of fertility agriculture, nature, and the seasons. Middle daughter of Cronus and Rhea. She is the second sister of Zeus and his 4th wife.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Other gods

Hades/Pluto 哈迪斯（冥王） Greek god of the underworld. Hades and his two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, drew lots for realms to rule. Zeus got the sky, Poseidon got the seas, and Hades received the underworld.

Eros/Cupid 邱比特 Eros in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"). . In the Roman version, Cupid was the son of Venus and Mars. Cupid was often depicted with wings, a bow, and a quiver of arrows.

Characteristics of Greek GodsCharacteristics of Greek Gods The ancient Greek gods normally took on

human form and lived in a society similar to human society. They exhibited all the emotions of human beings and frequently intervened in human history. The most significant difference between the Greek gods and humans was that the gods were immortal and human beings were not.

Morality: Zeus is a womanizer. Ethics: incest in marriage

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Lyric poet: Sappho

（ Depiction of Sappho in foreground with female associate ）

Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and all genders. The word lesbian derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Anacreon 阿那克里翁 (582 BC – 485 BC)

Anacreon's poetry touched on universal themes of love, disappointment, revelry, parties, festivals, and the observations of everyday people and life. It is the subject matter of Anacreon's poetry that helped to keep it familiar and enjoyable to generations of readers and listeners.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Roman Literature

Virgil (70-19 BC),National epic: Aeneid One of Rome’s greatest poets

Horace: (65-8 BC): poetic theory: Art of Poetry

Ovid (43BC-17AD): Metamorphoses

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Homer

Homer the personHerodotus said that

Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which is about 850 BC.

For modern scholarship, “the date of Homer” refers to the date of the poems’ conception (9-8th C. BC) as much as to the lifetime of an individual.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Homer

His life nothing definite is

known of him. The most common

version has Homer born in the Ionian region of Asia Minor (at Smyrna, or on the island of Chios).

The poet’s name is homophonous with “homêros”, meaning “hostage”, or, in some dialects, “blind”.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Ancient Greece

Homer the person

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Homer

His language The language used by Homer is an old version

of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects.

Also known as Homeric Greek, it later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry.

Reading of Reading of IliadIliad Form ： poetry Author: Homer Type: Epic Time: B.C. Place: Greece and Troy Main Characters: Paris, Hektor , Helen Menelaos : Akhaian King Akhilleus, Agamemnon

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Homer’s works

The IliadThe first extant work of Western literatureThe poem concerns events during the

tenth and final year of the Trojan War.The main character of the poem is the

Greek warrior Achilles, and his anger toward the king of Mycenae, Agamemnon, which proves disastrous for the Greeks.

The action of the Iliad covers only a few weeks of the tenth and final year of the Trojan War.

The Trojan WarThe Trojan War

a quarrel between the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite

Eris gave them a golden apple. Zeus: sent the apple for Paris to judge. Paris

judged that Aphrodite, as the "fairest", should receive the apple. In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women and wife of Menelaus, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy.

Paris Trojan prince, came to Sparta to marry Helen, whom hehad been promised by Aphrodite after he had chosen her as the most beautiful of the goddesses, earning the wrath of Athena and

Hera. (Judgement of Paris)

Paris judged the fairest lady.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Helen and Paris

HelenHelen of Sparta, later Helen of Troy, was

the daughter of Zeus and Leda, wife of King Menelaus (brother of Agamennon) of Sparta. Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War.

The god Zeus seduced, or raped, Leda in the form of a swan. Leda laid two eggs from which the children hatched, one of them is Helen. children of Zeus.

Leda and the Swan Leda and the Swan

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Helen

Struck by Helen’s beauty, Menelaus drops his swords. Detail of an Attic red-figure krater, ca. 450 BC–440 BC.

Helen of Troy by Evelyn de Morgan, 1898

The Story When Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek

forces at Troy, dishonors Achilles by taking Briseis,

a slave woman given to Achilles as a prize of war,

Achilles becomes enraged and withdraws from the

fighting. Without him and his powerful warriors, the

Greeks suffer defeat by the Trojans, almost to the

point of losing their will to fight.

The IliadThe Iliad

Achilles re-enters the fighting when Patroclus is killed by the Trojan prince Hector. Achilles slaughters many Trojans and kills Hector. In his rage, he then refuses to return Hector’s body to his father. Priam, the father of Hector, ransoms his son’s body, and the Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector.

AchillesAchilles

When killing Hector a blow to the neck, Achilles tied Hector's body to his chariot and dragged it around the battlefield for nine days.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Ancient Greece

Homer the person

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Heinrich Schliemann

1822-1990 German archaeologist 1871: Troy discovered

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

The Iliad

Translations into English1598: George Chapman’s translation was

praised by John Keats in his sonnet, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.

1715: Alexander Pope’s translation into rhymed pentameter.

1791: William Cowper’s version in Miltonic blank verse, more faithful to the Greek than Chapman or Pope.

1898: Samuel Butler’s prose translation: what we are going to read from the textbook.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

The Odyssey a sequel to the Iliad and mainly centers

on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home to Ithaca following the fall of Troy.

It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. During this absence, his son Telemachus and wife Penelope must deal with a group of unruly suitors, to compete for Penelope’s hand in marriage, since most have assumed that Odysseus has died.

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EUROPEAN LITERATURE

For further study

Online resourcesAristotle's Poetics: Notes on Sophocle

s' OedipusBackground on Drama, Generally, and

Applications to Sophocles' Play

Study Guide for Sophocles' Oedipus the King

Full text English translation of Oedipus the King by Ian Johnston, in verse

Sophocles (496? - 406 BC)Sophocles (496? - 406 BC)

His life– born highly wealthy (his

father was a wealthy armour

manufacturer) and was highly educated

throughout his entire life.– born a few years before the

Battle of Marathon (490 BC),

probably in Attica.


His life His artistic career began in 468 BC when

he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the reigning master of Athenian drama, Aeschylus.

He was a well-liked man who participated in activities in society and showed remarkable artistic ability.


His contributions:=one of high executive officials that

commanded the armed forces.-- one of the treasurers of Athena, helping to

manage the finances of the city.-- so respected by the Athenians that two

plays performed soon after his death paid homage to him.

Works by Works by Sophocles Sophocles Sophocles is said to have written 120 or more plays,

but only seven have survived in a complete form. - Ajax - Antigone - Trachinian Women - Oedipus the King - Electra - Philoctetes - Oedipus at Colonus Aristotle used Oedipus the King as an example of

perfect tragedy in his Poetics.

Oedipus the King Oedipus the King (Oedipus Tyrannus)(Oedipus Tyrannus)

Form ： Drama Author: Sophocles Type: Tragedy Time: 5th century BC Place: in Thebes Main Characters: Oedipus: Ruler of Thebes Jocasta: Wife and mother of Oedupus; wife of former king, Laius Creon: Brother of Jocasta

Plot:

A tragedy about that Oedipus killed his father Laius, the King of Thebes and married his mother, Queen Jocasta, without realizing what he was doing. After he knew that he is the murderer to his birth father, the former King and married his birth mother, Oedipus blinded by his own act and praying for death or exile.

Laius (king)

Thebes{ } Oedipus (Apollo’s Oracles) → Mount

Jocasta (Queen) ↓ Plague (Oracle) ↑ two shepherds

New King ↓

↑ Polybus (King)

Sphinx riddle Corinth { }Adopter

↑ Queen (Childless)

killed the old man ↓ (birth father) ← Oedipus (Oracle) flight

Acropolis in AthensAcropolis in Athens

Oedipus the KingOedipus, the protagonist of the tragedy, is

the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes.

Film: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/bfEm9lE5VAA/

Oedipus Complex an unconscious sexual feeling that a

son has towards his mother, at the same time hating his father.

Oedipus Complex A term used by Sigmund Freud to indicate a

male child’s unconscious desire for the exclusive love of his mother. This desire includes jealousy towards the father and the unconscious wish for his death.

SphinxGreek MythologyA winged creature having the head of a woman and the body of a lion, noted for killing those who could not answer its riddle

Riddle: What goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?

For further studywww.ProJet-cn.com/yangBinphon.blogbus.comwww.sparknotes.com/drama/oedipuswww.pathguy.com/oedipus.htm

ExercisesExercises 1. Write the titles of Homer’s two epics. 2. Who is Helen? 3. “Small wonder that Trojans and Achaeans

should endure so much and so long, for the sake of a woman so marvelously and divinely lovely.”

Who said the above words? A. Priest in Oedipus the King B. Virgil in The Divine Comedy C. One of the young ladies in The Decameron D. Sages in Iliad

4. What do you think of Oedipus from the selected reading?

5. What does Oedipus mean to say “not just for another man’s sake, but for my own as well. …I shall be serving Laius and myself”?

Introduction to Euro-American Literature Lecture 1 Ancient European Literature Tian Xiangbin.

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