Lecture 1.

Preface. Subject matter and tasks. The antique literature.

Content of the lecture:
The World literature: subject matter, tasks. The antique period of
world literature. Typological, genetic, historical and cultural approach to the
sources of world literature. Ancient Greek literature.

The purpose of teaching this discipline is to show the role and importance of
the history of fiction and the development of literary-theoretical thinking in the life
of the individual and society, the development of students' literary and aesthetic
thinking, the emergence of scientific observation and theoretical analysis and
interpretation. the formation of their talents, the formation of an active creative
spirit and responsibility. In this sense, the following tasks are important:
- Scientific analysis of individual, national and universal aspects of literary
models;
- Explain to students the role and importance of fiction and literary theory in
the development of the nation and society;
- to develop students' skills in understanding fiction;
- to develop the skills of understanding the literature and its analysis and
research from a philological point of view;
- to develop the relationship between literature and human on the basis of
literary laws;
- Development of new and emerging literary and scientific methods and
directions in fiction and literary theory based on public opinion;
- Enhancement of the national and universal literary-theoretical traditions,
the literary and aesthetic taste of the people.
Based on the traditions of world literature the course "History of World
Literature" provides extensive information on:
a) the ancient period of world literature;
b) medieval literature;
 c) Literature of the XVII-XVIII centuries
d) literature of the XIX century;
e) the periods of literature of the twentieth century.
Classified periods are studied not only from the literary-historical point of
view, but also from the literary-theoretical, philosophical, psychological and
aesthetic point of view.
Significant literary events that took place in ancient Greece, Rome, and
Europe are compared to the literature of the people of the East.
The first examples of written creative works began to appear in Greece
2700-2800 years ago. Greek literature played an important role in the rise of
Roman culture. The culture, art and literature created by these two ancient peoples
of the earth are called ancient culture, ancient literature. The Latin word antic
("antiguus") means "ancient". However, it is not correct to apply this term only to
the Greco-Roman literature, because the original cradle of culture was the
countries of the East; the original cradle of the first literary culture was the
countries of the East; the first literary monuments were previously created in
countries such as Egypt, Iran, China, India, Babylon (Babylon), as well as Central
Asia. However, we must never deny that Greek literature is an independent
literature without relying on the literature of any nation. From this point of view,
the main task before us is to provide students with in-depth knowledge and skills
from this course, and its program is broad and perfect.
ANTIQUE LITERATURE
The word "antique" means "ancient" in Latin (antigus). However, the term
antiquity does not apply to all ancient literature. Only the literature of ancient
Greece and Rome is understood under this title and it is explained by the fact that
the culture and art of Greece and Rome is considered to be the ancient cradle of
literature. Although the birthplace of ancient literature was Greece (VII-VI
centuries BC), it had also a major influence on Roman culture in the III century.
The culture lasted until the V-VI centuries AD. Antique period was a truly
flourishing phase of culture. Old Architecture, art and literature created in Greece
and Rome samples with their perfection, with a high degree of skill creation and
those great discoveries made by human thought still have been amazing the
humanity. Names of many artists who grew up during this period have reached the
present day. The works they have created are not appealing with just being purely
artistic, but the problems raised in them, human experiences, the eternity of
emotions, and their closeness to hearts still agitate the human being. It is difficult
to find a reader who is not acquainted with Homer the Great and his Iliad and
Odyssey, or Sophocles with his famous tragedy of King Oedipus.
Hence, the historical boundary of ancient literature dates back to BC and it
covers a period of 1,200 years, from the 8th to the 7th centuries AD to the 5th
century AD including.
Greek literature is the ancient literature of the people of Europe. We are far
from saying that the elements of ancient Eastern literature have not had influence
on the Greeks. Greek folklore was enriched by the folklore of the neighboring
people. Born on this folklore basis, Greek literature developed independently. Now
most of the art forms and stylistic devices we know are considered to be the
creations of the Greeks.
Roman literature developed after Greek literature. It developed based on the
experiences of the Greek literature. Hundreds and thousands of examples of
European literature are forgotten, only staying as the property of experts, but
Homer's epics, examples of Greek drama, the works of great Roman poets still
have not lost their artistic value and aesthetic significance. The charm of these
works is not only in the high skill of narrating, but in the expression of the feelings
and aspirations of the people which created this literature, as well. Issues equal to
centuries are captured in ancient Greco-Roman literature. . They honored and sang
about courage, the passion of struggle, the love for country, the power of human,
and at the same time they blackened the hypocrisy, cowardice, betrayal, and all
evil features like those. So, although it was created in the distant past, the examples
of Greco-Roman literature have been approved and still popular throughout the
history.
 The nations of Europe referred to Greek art and literature several times
during their development and based on them tried to deal with disturbing feelings
and ideas they had. Even at that period, when Paganism was being strongly
persecuted in the Middle Ages, the antique topics were not left out of European
literature. The great scholars of the Renaissance who were born in Italy in the 14th
century and later moved to other European countries aimed at awakening humanity
from the sleep of ignorance with the help of science, art and literature,
philosophical teachings of the ancient world. Humanitarians paid a great attention
to collecting and publishing antiquities. Thus, the word " Renaissance" was
originated from the concept of "restoration of ancient culture".
The literary current of European classicism in the seventeenth century
emerged and developed from the imitation of art of the ancient world. In particular,
for 100-150 years the theme of the tragedies of antiquity took central part on the
European stages. Approaching creatively, the art creators of that period used
samples of ancient literature and literary theory (especially Aristotle's Poetics)
effectively in creating their own literary concepts. . The law of "three units" (time,
space, unit of motion), widely used in the classicism drama is the result of such an
approach.
From the 2nd half of the eighteenth century onwards, attitudes in ancient
literature have changed a bit. Head against absolute power, the bourgeois leaders
found the ideas of freedom and liberty that interested them so much in the literary,
historical, and philosophical monuments of antiquity. Literature, theater and even
applied art during the French Revolution (1789-1794) was also dressed in antique
clothing. The following words of Andre Shene, a brilliant representative of
literature, confirm our ideas about that:
“Using the antique paints, we make our torches ignite from their political
flames, and with a new spirit we're going to create an ancient poem."
So the ancient Greeks and Romans culture became the basis for the new
European civilization. Many great writers, in particular, Dante, Petrarch,
Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Rable, Komel, Rasin, Moliere,
Voltaire, Lessing, Goethe and Schiller used ideas, artistic imagery of the antique
period, and reinterpreted them in their works. The great Russian writers and critics
like Pushkin, Gogol, Belinsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy also praised the literature of
the ancient world, and especially in a letter to one of Belinsky's friends the Greek
and Roman poets were highly valued by these words:
“The Iliad ... is such a source of peace for me that I sometimes feel
exhausted by some sweet torture ... I understood many things which I didn’t
understand because of Plutarch. I realized that the newest humanity had grown up
on Greek and Roman soils”.
It is known from historical and scientific sources that Central Asia has been
in cultural relations with the antique world for many centuries. At its time,
Hellenistic culture contributed to the development of the culture of our country
effectively. Along with this, in the period of the Greco-Bactrian rulers the Eastern
Hellenism culture emerged with the active participation of the people of the East.
“Today we find our country’s history of thousands of years, the traces of some
literature that has completely disappeared (Tomaris, Shirak, Zarina and Striangiya,
Zariadr and Odatida" epics) in the works of Roman historians of ancient Greek
(Herodotus, Polyene, Diodorus, Xares)”, writes N.M Mallayev, the Uzbek scholar
on Literature.
In science, as a result of cultural development that began in the X-XI
centuries great strides have been made. This period was characterized with such
great scientists as Al-Kharizmi, Abu Nasr al-Farabi, Abu Ali ibn Sina, Abu
Rayhan Beruni which have made great contributions to the development of world
culture. Abu Nasr al-Farabi who was famous as “Second Aristotle” or “Al muallim
as-soniy ”(“ second teacher ”), Ibn Sina, known with the titles as “The third
Aristotle”, "leader of science", "sultan of philosophy" wrote commentaries on the
scientific and philosophical works of Greek scholars and philosophers, widely
commenting and interpreting them.
Many historical, artistic, and scientific works have been written about
Alexander the Great, his personality, who wanted to unite East and West. There
have been various interpretations of his death in history. In the epic "Saddi
Iskandariy" written by Hazrat Navoi the image of Alexander is unique,
unrepeatable, interpreted in a new way. The genius poet tortured his
contemporaries through the image of Alexander, focusing on exciting spiritual and
moral issues.
From the 30s to 40s of the XX century the study of ancient literature and the
translation of works of the writers into Uzbek who lived and worked during that
period has been revived in Uzbekistan. In particular, ancient Greek literature
began to be studied by Oybek, A.Alimuhammedov, H.Sulaymonov. . After that,
the first translations of antiquity into Uzbek have seen the public. In this regard,
Oybek, Askad Mukhtor and Erkin Vahidov worked effectively to show the true
color of still a new research in antique literature. As a result of
Q.Mirmuhammedov’s hard work Homer’s epics “Iliad” and “Odyssey” were
translated into Uzbek. From the growing number of translations of works of
ancient Greek and Roman artists and philosophers, it can be indicated that the
interest in the culture of the antique times is still highly growing.
Examples of Ancient Literature
The Pyramid Texts of Egypt, also considered literature, tell of the journey of
the soul to the afterlife in the Field of Reeds and these works, unlike
Mesopotamian Naru Literature, presented the subject as truth. Egyptian religious
culture was based on the reality of an afterlife and the role the gods played in one's
eternal journey, of which one's life on earth was only one part. Homer’s Iliad
recounts the famous ten-year war between the Greeks and the Trojans while his
Odyssey tells of the great hero Odysseus’s journey back home after the war to his
beloved wife Penelope of Ithaca and this, like the other works mentioned,
reinforced cultural values without a concern for what may or may not have
happened concerning the war with Troy.

The story told in the biblical Book of Exodus (1446 BCE) is considered
historical truth by many today, but originally could have been meant to be
interpreted as liberation from bondage in a spiritual sense as it was written to
empower the worshipers of Yahweh, encouraged them to resist the temptations of
the indigenous peoples of Canaan, and elevated the audience's perception of
themselves as a chosen people of an all-powerful god.

The Song of Songs (c. 950 BCE) from the Hebrew scripture of the Tanakh,
immortalizes the passionate love between a man and a woman (interpreted by
Christians, much later, as the relationship between Christ and the church, though
no such interpretation is supported by the original text) and the sacred aspect of
such a relationship. The Indian epic Mahabharata (c.800-400 BCE) relates the birth
of a nation while the Ramayana (c. 200 BCE) tells the tale of the great Rama's
rescue of his abducted wife Sita from the evil Ravna. The works found in the
Assyrian King Asurbanipal’s library (647-627 BCE) record the heroic deeds of the
gods, goddesses and the struggles and triumphs of heroic kings of ancient
Mesopotamia such as Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, and Gilgamesh. Scholar Samuel
Noah Kramer points out that the early Sumerian works - and, indeed, Sumerian
culture as a whole - resonates in the modern day on many levels and is especially
apparent in literature. Kramer writes:

It is still apparent in a Mosaic law and a Solomonic proverb, in the tears of

Job and a Jerusalem lament, in the sad tale of the dying man-god, in a Hesiodic
cosmogony and a Hindu myth, in an Aesopic fable and a Euclidean theorem, in a
zodiacal sign and a heraldic design. (5)

Originality in Ancient Literature

Most early works were written in the poetical metre which the writer had
heard repeated over time and, therefore, the dating of such pieces as the Enuma
Elish or the Odyssey is difficult in that they were finally recorded in writing many
years after their oral composition. The great value which modern-day readers and
critics place on 'originality’ in literature was unknown to ancient people. The very
idea of according a work of the imagination of an individual with any degree of
respect would never have occurred to anyone of the ancient world. Stories were re-
tellings of the feats of great heroes, of the gods, the goddesses, or of creation, as in
Hesiod and Homer.

So great was the respect for what today would be called 'non-fiction’, that
Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100-1155 CE) claimed his famous History of the Kings
of Briton (which he largely made up) was actually a translation from an earlier text
he had 'discovered’ and Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471 CE) famed as the author
of the Morte D’Arthur, denied any original contributions to the work he compiled
from earlier authors, even though today it is clear that he added much to the source
material he drew from.

This literary tradition of ascribing an original work to earlier, seemingly-

authoritative, sources is famously exemplified in the gospels of the Christian New
Testament in that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, understood by
many believers to be eye-witness accounts of the ministry of Jesus, were written
much later by unknown authors who chose names associated with the early church.

Literature encompasses forms such as poetry, drama, prose, folklore, epic

tale, personal narrative, poetry, history, biography, satire, philosophical dialogues,
essays, legends and myths, among others. Plato’s Dialogues, while not the first to
combine philosophical themes with dramatic form, were the first to make drama
work in the cause of philosophical inquiry. Later writers drew on these earlier
works for inspiration (as Virgil did in composing his Aeneid, based on Homer’s
Iliad and Odyssey, between 30-18 BCE) and this tradition of borrowing lasted until
the time of Shakespeare (1564-1616 CE) and continues in the present day.
ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE AND ITS MAIN FEATURES
Literature is a mirror of people's life. Hence studying the ancient literature
should be begun from studying the lives of the peoples who created it. These
people are the ancient Greeks and Romans. In the II millennium BC in the territory
of Greece and on the islands of the Aegean Sea an ancient culture Crete-Mycenae,
named after two major centers appeared. According to ancient Greek people’s
thoughts, myths about gods and goddesses who found their placec on the "sacred"
Mount Olympus were also created in this period. The first period of Cretan-
Mycenaean literature was folklore which included many centuries of its existence,
was completed in the ninth century BC. Samples of the works of this period have
not reached us, and some information about it can be found in the literature of the
later period, in Egyptian and Hittite documents. Formed over several centuries in
the archaic period, Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey are the only fully survived
samples of epics which were successfully recorded in the sixth century BC. If an
epic tells the story about the world, surrounding a human being and the events in it,
the lyric sings about the human’s inner world and explains the mutual experiences
of the poet and the hero. The term "lyric" refers to a stringed instrument, the lyre,
and means "a poem performed to the accompaniment of music". There are two
main types of lyric poetry in ancient Greek poetry which are monodic, performed
by a soloist lyrics and choral lyrics sung by many. Pindaming's works are the first
examples of choral lyricism, monodic lyrics can be found in the poems of Sappho
and Anacreont. The Greeks imagined lyrical poetry in connection with song,
music, and even dance. Gradually such types of lyrics as yamb and elegy genres
have become genres designated exclusively for reading.
In the poetry of the VII-VI centuries BC, it was in trend to interpret the idea
of the individual andhis thoughts from a religious-moral point of view. In the sixth
century, prose in the Ionian style was born in Ionia. Novels depicting images of
ordinary and historical people, and examples referring to the name of Aesop have
been created. Athenian culture flourished in the period of the 5th and 4th centuries
BC, dramatic genres, especially tragedy developed. Aeschylus, the great poet of
the Athenian democracy, addressed social and moral issues in his tragedies.
Sophocles created the image of a free man. The comedy, retaining its traditional
form was enriched with a new socio-satirical content, developed. The works of
Aristophanes in this period emerged as a sharp satire in Greek political and cultural
life. Along with individualized characters generalized humorous images
appeared.: As a result of Roman conquest in the 2nd century BC, the cultural life
of Greece turned into a depression, and only by the first century AD, a revival had
taken place. In the IV century the Greek literature was completely in crisis.
Ancient Greek literature is divided into the following periods:
1. Khit-Mycenae or Aegean culture ( from the year 2000 BC to the XII
century BC).
2. Literature of the Homeric period (IX-VIII centuries BC).
3. The archaic period of Greek literature (before the beginning of the V
century BC).
4. Ancient period - V-IV centuries. The flourishing of the Hellenic polis
period
5. Hellenistic period (literature of Hellenic society) - VI-I centuries BC.
6. Greek literature of the Roman Empire - From the end of the I century BC.
Ancient Greek literature which united Eastern and European literature of the
New Age is considered to be an important part of world literature in terms of its
significance.