Ancient Greek literature spans more than a thousand years and created almost every literary genre we know. The texts that survive are only a small part of what was written: many authors are known only from fragments, quotations or papyri found in Egypt.
Periods
| Period | Dates | Main genres and authors |
|---|---|---|
| Archaic | 8th-6th century BC | Epic (Homer, Hesiod), lyric (Sappho, Alcaeus, Archilochus, Anacreon), first philosophers |
| Classical | 5th-4th century BC | Tragedy, comedy, history, oratory, philosophy: centred on Athens |
| Hellenistic | 323-31 BC | Learned poetry (Callimachus), pastoral (Theocritus), epic (Apollonius of Rhodes), New Comedy (Menander) |
| Imperial | 1st-5th century AD | Biography (Plutarch), satire (Lucian), the novel, the New Testament |
Epic
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are the foundation of all Greek culture. Hesiod, a Boeotian farmer, wrote the Theogony, on the origin of the gods, and Works and Days, a poem about farming and justice.
Lyric poetry
Lyric was poetry sung to the lyre, at private or public occasions. Sappho of Lesbos, the greatest woman poet of antiquity, wrote of love with an intensity that still strikes readers; Alcaeus, also of Lesbos, sang of politics and wine; Archilochus of Paros was a sharp-tongued soldier; Pindar celebrated victors of the Olympic and other Panhellenic games in solemn odes.
Theatre
Theatre was born in Athens at the festivals of Dionysus. Of the three great tragedians, 32 complete tragedies survive: 7 by Aeschylus (including the Oresteia trilogy), 7 by Sophocles (Oedipus the King, Antigone), 18 by Euripides (Medea, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae), plus the Rhesus, of disputed authorship. Aristophanes was the master of political and satirical comedy.
History
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, "the father of history", told of the Persian Wars and the customs of the peoples he visited. Thucydides wrote the history of the Peloponnesian War with new rigour. Xenophon's Anabasis tells of ten thousand Greek mercenaries' retreat from Persia, with the famous cry "Thalatta! Thalatta!" ("The sea! The sea!"). In the Hellenistic age Polybius explained the rise of Rome.
Oratory and philosophy
In democratic Athens speaking well was essential: Lysias, Isocrates and above all Demosthenes are the great orators. Plato wrote philosophical dialogues of great literary beauty; Aristotle founded literary criticism with the Poetics.
Hellenistic and imperial ages
In Alexandria Callimachus championed short, polished poetry, Theocritus invented pastoral poetry of shepherds and landscapes, Apollonius of Rhodes told the voyage of the Argonauts. Menander created the comedy of everyday middle-class life, model for Plautus and Terence. In the imperial age Plutarch wrote the Parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans, Lucian satirical dialogues and the first tale of a voyage to the Moon; love and adventure novels appeared, such as Longus's Daphnis and Chloe.
How they reached us
The texts were copied by hand for centuries, in the libraries of Alexandria and then in the monasteries and schools of Byzantium. After the fall of Constantinople Greek scholars brought manuscripts to Italy, where they were printed for the first time, above all in Venice by Aldus Manutius.
See also modern Greek literature and the history of the Greek language.