INTRODUCTION TO GREEK LITERATURE

29問 • 2年前

問題一覧

The are recognized as an —. They are known in history as the ""

exceptional people "noble Greeks."

Because of their ATTAINMENTS in LITERATURE, SCULPTURE, ARCHITECTURE, AND PHILOSOPHY, The TERM the — that was Greece is PARTICULARLY APPLICABLE to them

glory

Out of the darkness of — that prevailed in ancient times when ABSOLUTE DESPOTS GOVERNED their people capriciously, cruelly, and ruthlessly, when the governed were wretched and miserable, when superstition and ignorance were rampant, the cities of Greece —.

barbarism progressed

These cities became centers of —, and their INHABITANTS pursued BEAUTY in ALL its FORMS and DEVELOPED A PASSION for — in its true sense.

white-hot intellectual energy democracy

Their — did not understand the Greeks and their way of life. —, the great Greek HISTORIAN, was a great TRAVELER.

neighbors Herodotus

When he was in Persia, the Persian queen, —, asked him, "Who are the Greeks?" "I am a Greek," Herodotus answered. "When you look at me, you see a Greek" "What master do they obey?" the queen asked again "The Greeks have no master, they are not slaves," was Herodotus bold answer. "Whom do they obey then?" the queen insisted. "They obey the laws? The laws? What are the laws? They have no master. What a strange people!" The queen shook her head.

Atossa

Of what they ACCOMPLISHED in — little remains, and we are NOT EVEN SURE that —

art what we have is the best.

There is NO SCULPTURE COMPARABLE to theirs: there are NO BUILDINGS MORE BEAUTIFUL and More Admirable Than those they BUILT, there are NO Literary PIECES SUPERIOR to theirs In fact, in literature they are all —

supreme-the world has produced

no epic poet to compare with —.

Homer

no lyric poet to equal —.

Pindar

The Greeks cultivated prose rather late, but history has no greater practitioner than —

Herodotus and Thucydides

and there is NO PROSE, aside perhaps from the —, more poetic than that of —.

Bible Plato

Of the four great TRAGIC POETS the world has produced, three are GREEK (GIVE IT), the fourth is —

Aeschylus Sopochles Euripides Shakespeare

Of their painting little has survived, but we have the statement of a CONTEMPORARY ART CRITIC commenting on a painting of — by Polygnotus: —

Helen of Troy "In her eyes, one could read the story of the Trojan War "

EGYPT produced an art that was —, stiff in its FIXITY of —.

unnatural expression

The — artists were UNABLE to work with FREEDOM.

Egyptian

—, on the other hand, was ABSOLUTELY FREE, but the results were —.

Indian art strange

Consider the famous statue of —, an Indian god, represented as performing an INTRICATE DANCE.

Siva

INDIAN GOD The god stands POISED, arrested in movement, the MOVEMENTS OF THE DANCE are REPRESENTED by — curving from the body to DENOTE THE RHYTHM of the dance.

many heads and arms

Now consider a Greek statue of —, the MESSENGER OF THE GODS.

Hermes

The statue of HERMES REPRESENTS a —, recognizably a HUMAN BEING.

perfectly human form

Every DETAIL shows an EXACT KNOWLEDGE of the HUMAN BODY. There is NOTHING TO DENOTE that he is a —, no —, but his — is the MARK OF HIS DIVINITY.

god no halo around his head absolute beauty

To understand the Greeks, we must try to— their EXPERIENCES to ask what these DID for them and what these COST.

recapture

Such a search cannot be entirely successful, for to — is extremely difficult.

probe a distant past

Another OBSTACLE to a true understanding is that we READ Greek works only THROUGH —.

translations

Translations are indispensable because — is NOW A DEAD LANGUAGE; nobody speaks it any longer. But a translation can only indicate: it CANNOT REPLACE The original.

ancient Greek

This is especially lamentable in relation to GREEK LITERATURE because the greater portion of their LITERARY WORKS were WRITTEN in .

poetry

We must remember that a poem, especially a typical LYRIC POEM, is —

two-thirds melody one-third thought.

— CANNOT DUPLICATE the RHYTHM, the TONE, the combination of VOWEL sounds and CONSONANT values which give poetry its INIMITABLE and enduring QUALITY.

Translation

ALERTNESS

Trix Soriano · 24問 · 2年前

ALERTNESS