HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE 

Twin sources, Bible and Homer: from 1000 BC

Two great reservoirs of source material for European literature (and indeed for all European
art) are recorded for posterity in regions bordering the eastern Mediterranean during the
centuries after 1000 BC.

The holy books of Judaism are slightly the earlier of the two. Known to Christians as the Old
Testament, they are written down (at first from earlier oral sources) from about 1000 BC
onwards. The other comparable body of material derives entirely from an oral tradition.
Somewhere around 750 BC the Odyssey and the Iliad are transformed from bardic songs into
written texts - the transition from folklore to literature. They are credited to a blind poet,
Homer.
The Homeric question
 

Who was Homer? When did he write? What did he write? These difficult matters, known
collectively as the 'Homeric question', have puzzled scholars since as early as the 6th
century BC. The problem is neatly avoided in Max Beerbohm's phrase 'those incomparable
poets Homer'. And it is well stated in a legendary schoolboy howler: 'Homer was not
written by Homer but by another poet of the same name.'  

The truth is that nothing is known about Homer other than what can be gleaned from
the Iliad and the Odyssey (and it is not even certain that they are by the same hand). But a
greater truth is that European literature begins, in Homer, with two amazing masterpieces.
Important clues to the date of Homer are provided by physical details recorded in the  
poems, such as the design of costume and armour, or methods of fighting. These reflect the
realities of life (as known from archaeology) at two particular periods, the 13th century and
the 8th century BC.

The 13th century sees the final flowering of Mycenaean Greece. It is the time when the
Greeks probably go to war against Troy and it is therefore the period of the events
remembered, in heroic form, in the story of the Iliad (see the Trojan War). The 8th century
is when the poems become fixed in approximately the versions now known to us.
In the unsettled centuries following the Trojan War, the art of writing (known in Mycenae
in the form of Linear B) is lost. But the events of the war are remembered, celebrated and
richly embroidered by generations of bards. At festivals, or in the houses of great men,
these bards recite incidents from the story.
 
Their narratives, made more memorable in rhythmic couplets, are the stock in trade of these
men. Their livelihood depends on exciting an audience, eager to enjoy the exploits of heroes
and gods. A well-told episode, honed in performance, is a valuable property, to be handed
on to the next generation.
Newly added details, if found to give pleasure, are included for a while as a regular part of
the story. But details added a generation a two or ago are easily recognized by the audience
as anachronistic, old-fashioned. They are neither from the heroic past nor up to date. They
are yesterday's material. They are dropped.
 
So the bardic recitals at any time tend to consist of the original core of the stories with a
sprinkling of contemporary detail. This is the basis for the conclusion that the poems
become stabilized (or written down by the mysterious Homer) during the 8th century BC.

Written texts of Homer: 8th - 5th century BC

There is a good reason for this particular date, the 8th century BC. It is when writing returns
to Greece, in a more congenial alphabetic form.

But it is not a case of someone simply writing down an existing poem. The strongest
argument for Homer as a single writer of genius is the accomplished literary form of
 
the Iliad and the Odyssey. The separate incidents which make up the two stories must
certainly have been in the repertoire of many performers, but no single bard is likely to have
sung all the material that Homer uses. And nobody, in an age before writing, has either the
incentive or the opportunity to fashion such skilfully shaped overall narratives - with
beginning, middle and end.
The Plot of the Iliad follows one very precise thread, announced in the opening words of
the poem: 'The wrath of Achilles is my theme'.  
Achilles is wrathful at the start of the poem because Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks,
has taken from him a beautiful girl, Briseis, a prize of war. Achilles, the great warrior, sulks
in his tent and the Greek cause suffers. Many dramatic events follow directly from this
premise, and while describing them Homer fills in the broader picture of the Trojan War.
By the end there is reconciliation; order is restored; Briseis is back in the bed of Achilles. In
masterly fashion, and with wonderfully vivid story-telling and characterization, a wide
canvas has been sketched without loss of focus.
By contrast the Odyssey is a collection of fantastic adventures, experienced by Odysseus on
his ten-year journey home to Ithaca from the Trojan War. But again they are held within a
clear narrative frame.

At the start of the poem Penelope, wife of the absent Odysseus, is plagued by a crowd of
 
suitors. They abuse her servants and consume her wealth. At the end Odysseus returns
home. Having by now the appearance of a beggar, he too is roundly abused. But in a contest
to string the great bow of Odysseus, he is the only one with the strength to do so. He uses it
to kill the suitors, in a dramatic climax reminiscent of a shoot-out in a western. Even
Penelope at first fails to recognize him, but soon the pair are happily reunited.

The oral tradition of Homer: 8th - 5th century BC

The writing down of the Homeric poems in the 8th century BC does not mean that they
become available to readers. The texts merely enable his followers to preserve the works
and to perform them in a consistent manner.

A group of such followers, the Homeridae, become associated with the island of Chios, off  
the coast of Ionia. Ancient tradition links Homer himself with Ionia, and the language of
the poems seems to confirm an Ionic background.

It is not until about 425 BC that a book trade develops in Athens, with educated people
acquiring papyrus scrolls to read in the privacy of their homes. Plato, writing in
the Phaedrus in about 365 BC, expresses strong disapproval of this new-fangled fashion for
reading by oneself.

So the first great flowering of European literature reaches its original audience through their
ears rather than their eyes, in public performance. This convention provides not only the
beginning of epic poetry, in Homer. It also produces another extraordinary Greek
innovation - the theatre.

Greek theatre: from the 6th century BC

The origins of Greek theatre lie in the revels of the followers of Dionysus, a god of fertility and
wine. In keeping with the god's special interests, his cult ceremonies are exciting occasions. His
female devotees, in particular, dance themselves into a state of frenzy. Carrying long phallic
symbols, known as thyrsoi, they tear to pieces and devour the raw flesh of sacrificial animals.

But the Dionysians also develop a more structured

form of drama. They dance and sing, in choral
form, the stories of Greek myth.

In the 6th century BC a priest of Dionysus, by the

name of Thespis, introduces a new element which
can validly be seen as the birth of theatre. He
engages in a dialogue with the chorus. He
becomes, in effect, the first actor. Actors in the
west, ever since, have been proud to call
 
themselves Thespians.

According to a Greek chronicle of the 3rd century

BC, Thespis is also the first winner of a theatrical
award. He takes the prize in the first competition
for tragedy, held in Athens in 534 BC.
Theatrical contests become a regular feature of the  
annual festival in honour of Dionysus, held over
four days each spring and known as the City
Dionysia. Four authors are chosen to compete.
Each must write three tragedies and one satyr play
(a lascivious farce, featuring the sexually rampant
satyrs, half-man and half-animal, who form the
retinue of Dionysus).

The performance of the plays by each author takes

a full day, in front of a large number of citizens in
holiday mood, seated on the slope of an Athenian
hillside. The main feature of the stage is a circular
space on which the chorus dance and sing. Behind
it a temporary wooden structure makes possible a
suggestion of scenery. At the end of the festival a
winner is chosen.
The Greek tragedians: 5th century BC

Only a small number of tragedies survive as full

texts from the annual competitions in Athens, but
they include work by three dramatists of genius.
The earliest is the heavyweight of the trio,
Aeschylus.

Aeschylus adds a second actor, increasing the

potential for drama. He first wins the prize for
tragedy in 484 BC. He is known to have written  
about eighty plays, of which only seven survive.
One of his innovations is to write the day's three
tragedies on a single theme, as a trilogy. By good
fortune three of his seven plays are one such
trilogy, which remains one of the theatre's great
masterpieces - the Oresteia, celebrating the
achievement of Athens in replacing the chaos of
earlier times with the rule of law.
Sophocles gains his first victory in 468 BC,
defeating Aeschylus. He is credited with adding a
third actor, further extending the dramatic
possibilities of a scene. Whereas Aeschylus tends
to deal with great public themes, the tragic
dilemmas in Sophocles are worked out at a more
personal level. Plots become more complex,
characterization more subtle, and the personal  
interaction between characters more central to the
drama.

Although Sophocles in a very long life writes more

plays than Aeschylus (perhaps about 120), again
only seven survive intact. Of these Oedipus the
King is generally considered to be his masterpiece.
The youngest of the three great Greek tragedians is  
Euripides. More of his plays survive (19 as
opposed to 7 for each of the others), but he has
fewer victories than his rivals in the City Dionysia
- in which he first competes in 454 BC.

Euripides introduces a more unconventional view

of Greek myth, seeing it from new angles or
viewing mythological characters in terms of their
human frailties. His vision is extremely influential
in later schools of tragic drama. Racine, for
example, derives Andromaque and Phèdre from
the Andromache and Hippolytus of Euripides.
The beginning of Greek comedy: 5th century BC

From 486 BC there is an annual competitition for

comedies at Athens - held as part of the Lenaea, a
three-day festival in January. Only one comic
author's work has survived from the 5th century.
Like the first three tragedians, he launches the
genre with great brilliance. He is Aristophanes, a
frequent winner of the first prize in the Lenaea (on
the first occasion, in 425 BC, with the Acharnians).
 
Eleven of his plays survive, out of a total of
perhaps forty spanning approximately the period
425-390 BC. They rely mainly on a device which
becomes central to the tradition of comedy. They
satirize contemporary foibles by placing them in an
unexpected context, whether by means of a
fantastic plot or through the antics of ridiculous
characters.
A good example is The Frogs, a literary satire at
the expense of Euripides. After the death of the
great man, Dionysus goes down to Hades to bring
back his favourite tragedian. A competition held
down there enables Aristophanes to parody the
style of Euripides. As a result Dionysus comes
back to earth with Aeschylus instead.
 
In The Wasps the Athenian love of litigation is
ridiculed in the form of an old man who sets up a
law court in his home, to try his dog for stealing
cheese. In Lysistrata the horrors of war are
discussed in a circumstance of extreme social
crisis; the women of Greece refuse to make love
until their men agree to make peace.

Herodotus, the father of history: 5th century BC

The next great achievement of Greek literature is the writing of history. No one before
Herodotus has consciously attempted to discover the truth about the past and to explain its
causes. He is rightly known as the 'father of history'.

The saga which inspires him to undertake anything so new and so difficult is the one which has
overshadowed his own childhood and youth - the clash between Greeks and Persians.
Herodotus grows up in Halicarnassus, in Ionia. At the time of his birth the Greeks are winning
great battles in mainland Greece. During his adult life they drive the Persians from the Greek
colonies of Ionia.
 

Asia Minor lies between these two great civilizations, Greece and Persia. Brought up within the
first, Herodotus determines to find out about the second. He spends much of his life travelling
within the Persian empire, which extends at this time into Egypt. So this first work of history is
also, in a sense, the first travel book. In the way of travel books, it includes exotic details - such
as how the Egyptians make mummies.

Copies of Herodotus are available by 425 BC. By then his story has a patriotic urgency, with its
account of a time when all the Greeks combined against a common enemy. In strong contrast is
the bitter contemporary squabbling of the Peloponnesian War, which has entered a new phase
in 431 BC.
 

Thucydides and contemporary history: 431 - 411 BC

The second Greek historian, Thucydides, adds a new dimension - that of contemporary history.
An Athenian, born probably in about 460 BC, he is a young man when war is renewed between
Athens and Sparta in 431, after a peace of sixteen years.
Although the complete work of Herodotus is not yet published, Thucydides is certain to know
the work of the older historian - who has made his living by reciting the highlights of his
narrative. Herodotus has told the story of the last great war, between Greeks and Persians. In
431 Thucydides recognizes the onset of the next major conflict, between Greeks. He resolves to
record the Peloponnesian War as it happens.
 

He is immediately in the thick of events. In the summers of 430 and 429 Athens is stricken by
plague. The Athenian leader, Pericles, dies of the disease. Thucydides himself catches it but
survives. His Account of the symptoms is a first-hand report of unprecedented vividness.

In 424 he is elected one of the ten strategoi or military commanders for that year. Put in charge
of an Athenian fleet in the northern Aegean, he fails to prevent the Spartans capturing an
important city in the region. As a result he is exiled from Athens. He says later that the
misfortune helps him in his great task, forcing him to travel and enabling him to view the
conflict from different perspectives.
 

An important characteristic of Thucydides' work is his determination to achieve an objective

view of what has happened, and of its causes. He states this clearly at the end of his
introduction, saying that he will begin by listing the precise complaints of each side which, in
their view, led to war.

But he then adds that he believes such arguments obscure the issue. In his own considered
opinion, 'what made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this
caused in Sparta'.
 A clear statement of the available evidence, leading to an informed conclusion, has remained
the basic principle of history. The serious historian is advocate for both sides as well as
presiding judge. To this end Thucydides uses a method which seems strange to a modern
reader. His protagonists put their points of view in long speeches, perhaps in an assembly or
before a battle. In the narrative these fall naturally enough. But since Thucydides himself was
usually not there, his method is a fictional one which now seems out of place in history.

His account ends abruptly in 411. Whatever the reason may be, it is not his own death. He
returns from exile to Athens at the end of the war, in 404.
 

Xenophon and eyewitness history: 400 BC

Thucydides' history is continued from 411 BC by the third and last of the great trio of Greek
historians - Xenophon. The fact that a contemporary continues the work so precisely from this
date proves that Thucydides did indeed finish his work there, rather than the remainder being
lost. But Xenophon, though a vivid writer, proves a very inadequate historian at a serious level.
A supporter of Sparta, he lacks any sense of objectivity.

Fortunately this does not spoil the work which has made him famous. In 400 BC he finds
himself part of a Greek force making a desperate retreat from Persia. Objectivity is irrelevant.
He describes only what he sees and hears. The result is vivid eyewitness history, akin almost to
journalism.

Xenophon's Anabasis (Greek for 'the journey up') is full of fascinating detail, as the Greek
mercenaries struggle homewards from defeat in Persia. Desperate for provisions, they are
constantly skirmishing with hostile tribesmen. Xenophon is voted into the leadership group and
he gives himself much of the credit (possibly with justification) for their safe return to Greece,
five months later.

The most famous moment in his account is when the leaders of the column come over the ridge
of a mountain and begin shouting Thalassa, Thalassa (the sea, the sea). They have reached the
Black Sea and relative safety.