   ancient greek literature refers to literature written in the ancient greek language from the earliest texts until roughly the rise of the byzantine empire. == classical and pre-classical antiquity == this period of greek literature stretches from homer until the 4th century bc and the rise of alexander the great. english mathematician and philosopher alfred north whitehead once claimed that all of philosophy is but a footnote to plato. to suggest that all of western literature is no more than a footnote to the writings of ancient greece is an exaggeration, but it is nevertheless true that the greek world of thought was so far-ranging that there is scarcely an idea discussed today not already debated by the ancient writers. the earliest known greek writings are mycenaean, written in the linear b syllabary on clay tablets. these documents contain prosaic records largely concerned with trade (lists, inventories, receipts, etc.); no real literature has been discovered. several theories have been advanced to explain this curious absence. one is that mycenaean literature, like the works of homer and other epic poems, was passed on orally, since the linear b syllabary is not well-suited to recording the sounds of greek (see phonemic principle). greek literature was divided in well-defined literary genres, each one having a compulsory formal structure, about both dialect and metrics. the first division was between prose and poetry. fictional literature was written in verse, while scientific literature was in prose. within the poetry we could separate three super-genres: epic, lyric and drama. we can observe here that the greek terminology has became the common european terminology about literary genres. lyric and drama were further divided into more genres: lyric in four (elegiac, iambic, monodic lyric and choral lyric); drama in three (tragedy, comedy and pastoral drama). about literature in prose there was more freedom; the main areas were historiography, philosophy and political rhetoric. === epic poetry === at the beginning of greek literature stand the two monumental works of homer, the iliad and the odyssey. the figure of homer is shrouded in mystery. although the works as they now stand are credited to him, it is certain that their roots reach far back before his time (see homeric question). the iliad is the famous story about the trojan war. it centers on the person of achilles, who embodied the greek heroic ideal. while the iliad is pure tragedy, the odyssey is a mixture of tragedy and comedy. it is the story of odysseus, one of the warriors at troy. after ten years fighting the war, he spends another ten years sailing back home to his wife and family. penelope was considere
Ancient_Greek_culture Ancient_Greek_language Ancient_Greek_literature Greek_literature History_of_literature