Classic Stories

The Classical Literary Period

The global nature of our lives today is not terribly different from life in the ancient and classical worlds. We certainly can travel and communicate faster than people did 2,500 years ago, but even back then people were telling similar kinds of stories, striving for similar ideals, and asking themselves similar questions about the nature of being human. Just as the classical world of Ancient Greece had epics like the Odyssey, we have stories of modern day heroes and heroines who embark on journeys or battles of their own in order to pursue an ideal. We witness these pursuits in films like Star Wars and Spider-Man, as well as in texts like Divergent and Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, the story of Cheryl Strayed’s journey hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

The ancient world

Ancient civilizations around the world contributed to the development of the modern cultures we see today. Of these cultures, ancient Greece is considered the foundation of the Western world. Ideas about democracy, philosophy, science, medicine, literature, and the other arts all spring from the Greek islands in the Mediterranean. Modern Western literature and storytelling have their roots in the oral tradition of the ancient Greeks, dating from around 800–500 BCE. During this period, before writing was widespread, stories were shared orally as entertainment and instruction. The most important works of Ancient Greece are the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, both ascribed to the Greek poet Homer. These long narrative poems tell the stories of early military battles and overseas journeys. Peopled with human heroes and divine figures, they were and continue to be considered part history, part mythology, part moral instruction, and full-on entertainment.

Multiple Choice

How were stories told in Ancient Greece?

• orally

• Through writing

• By singing and dancing

• By carving pictures into rocks

Multiple Select

What were epic poems about? (choose 2)

• military battles

• everyday life

• Mythological creatures

• overseas journeys

The classical world

The classical period began around 500 BCE. By this time, Greek culture had grown increasingly sophisticated and influential in the Mediterranean region. A democratic system of rule had been established in Athens, the Greek capital city. Drama became a recognized art form in which small groups of actors and singers stood before audiences to act out exciting and thought-provoking tales of noble life. The sub-genres of tragedy and comedy emerged, including the masterpiece of Greek tragedies, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. This play tells the story of a king who tries to change his fate, only to accidentally fulfill it. Also during this period, the Greek thinkers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle made an impact on the study of knowledge and existence, or philosophy. Through dialogues and discussions, they explored new ways of thinking critically about the world and humanity’s place in it.

Multiple Choice

What became recognized as an art form?

• drama

• sculptures

• Writing

• politics

The ancient and classical worlds were global places. In the mid 300s BCE, Alexander the Great expanded Greek influence as far east as India and Persia. At its height, the Roman empire included Britain, most of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Each empire included people who spoke different languages and practiced different customs and religions. As a result, many texts from different regions of the world during this period have surprisingly similar themes and structures. The parables of Jesus, like the fables of the Greek writer Aesop, were simple tales with clear morals or lessons for listeners. The epics of Greece, Rome, and India all featured gods and goddesses intermingling with the human heroes, important battles, and a focus on the pursuit of ideals. Even though Greco-Roman and Indian epics like the Odyssey and the Rámáyana were written in completely different places, they both take place in a mythological past and involve gods populating the human earth. They describe the journeys of heroes who face battle, turmoil, and the prospect of victory.

Multiple Choice

Each empire included people who spoke different languages and practiced different customs and religions. As a result, many texts from different regions of the world during this period have surprisingly similar .....

• themes and structures

• Artwork

• Political ideologies

• Economic systems

Major Concepts

Focus on Classical Values

The artists, poets, and philosophers of the ancient and classical periods valued reason or rational thinking over emotion or passion. They sought to achieve the ideal or most perfect form in their works, whether it be a sculpture of the idealized human form or an epic poem about an ideal hero. Poets and artists communicated these values in both form and content. For example, epic poems and tragedies may have episodes of passion and action, but these dramatic moments are always balanced out by a clear theme about the importance of rational behavior and moral actions. In their lectures, philosophers argued about how to attain these ideals in an imperfect world. Architects built structures that were perfectly balanced and symmetrical.

Drag and Drop

During the Classical Period, ​

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or rational thinking were valued over ​

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or passion.

Drag these tiles and drop them in the correct blank above

reason

emotion

confusion

irrationality

Major Concepts

Purpose

Epic poems, plays, and philosophical texts all were meant to serve the purpose of teaching a lesson or inspiring audiences to think. Even an exciting epic poem, such as the Rámáyana from India, invited listeners to contemplate the influences of fate, the gods, and history on their world. Despite the inclusion of mythological figures in the literature and artwork of the period, the works themselves are not fantasy or myths; they were deeply informed by and reflective of the philosophy of the day. They were concerned with making moral choices and using reason to make sense of a chaotic world.

Multiple Choice

Stories were meant to teach a lesson and using reason to make sense out of _____.

• chaos

• hardships

• Historical events

• Scientific theories

Major Concepts

Emerging Genres

The literature of the ancient and classical periods was wide ranging in its genres. Poetic forms included lyric poetry, odes, and epic narrative poems, such as the Odyssey and the Rámáyana. Dramas included tragedies like Sophocles’ political play Antigone and comedies like Aristophanes’ The Birds. Plato’s Dialogues are recreated conversations between Plato and his teacher Socrates in which they explore, through the exchange of questions and answers, how to live an ethical life. Aesop’s fables were short humorous stories about non-human characters that ended with an explicit moral or lesson.

Style and Form

Allegory

​Allegory is a form of storytelling with hidden levels of meanings that the author wants readers or listeners to discern. Unlike Aesop’s fables, which end with an explicitly stated lesson or moral, part of Plato’s Republic is an allegory. “The Allegory of the Cave” employs symbolism and analogies that readers must recognize and decode in order to understand the meaning. In the text, Socrates presents his ideas on education by using the analogy of prisoners literally being led from a dark, shadowy cave to the sunlight outside. As a result, the Republic is both a straightforward story about prisoners in a cave and an examination of how we humans perceive reality.

Multiple Choice

In an allegory what must the reader do?

• recognize and decode the symbolism and analogies

• Memorize the characters

• Interpret the moral of the story

• Determine the author's intent

The epic was a common genre in regions all around the globe during the classical period. Many epic poems from the period that survive were written thousands of miles apart in different languages and reflect different cultural traditions. Yet, these epics have many surprising similarities.

An epic is a long narrative poem about one particular hero’s deeds. Epic poetry of the ancient and classical periods was primarily created to transmit the values and traditions of the poet’s culture. While not considered historical documents today, ancient epic poems were once the most effective method for recording and passing down details about historical events from long ago.

Epic Poem

Style and Form

Style and Form

Formal and Restrained

The literature and other art of the ancient and classical periods is characterized by a formal and restrained style. A glance at any piece of classical Greek or Roman art or architecture makes that style clear. It is perfectly balanced and symmetrical and hardly adorned, which can be seen in the Parthenon, a famous Greek temple built in 480 B.C. Classical artists strove to achieve an ideal, and therefore did not include excess features that could throw the piece off balance or reveal any awkward human flaw. Likewise, classical authors employed a restrained style in their poetry and prose. True to the philosophy of the time, they prized balance and order in their language and in the structure of their poems and plots. Dramas follow Aristotle’s unities, strict rules that dictated that a play must focus on one action over the course of one day in a single location. All the messy action happens offstage and then is described in formal language for the audience by a member of the chorus. In epic poems, passionate actions are often counseled against or result in terrible consequences.

Multiple Choice

Authors during the classical period valued what in their language?

• balance and order

• Excessive use of figurative language

• Repetition of words

• Overly elaborate sentence structure