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.

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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