Greek literature: Quick Facts

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Map showing the chief cities of Ancient Greece and surrounding regions, including locations such as Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Delphi, Thebes, Troy, Olympia, Syracuse, and Ephesus, along with notable islands and mountain ranges in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.

Kazantzákis, Níkos

Engraved bust of Homer, a bearded man in a conical cap, overlaid on a painting of a galley with rowers and winged figures.

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Topics

Ancient Greek literature Byzantine Greek literature Modern Greek literature Homeric epics New Comedy satyr play Old Comedy Menippean satire Homeric Hymns Middle Comedy English literature French literature African literature American literature Arabic literature Italian literature German literature Spanish literature Japanese literature Latin American literature

Key People

Pound, Ezra

Ezra Pound

American poet

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Poliziano

Italian poet and humanist

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Theodore Metochites

Byzantine statesman

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Maximus Planudes

Byzantine scholar and theologian

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Bessarion

Byzantine theologian

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Diogenes Laërtius

Greek author

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Bernard de Montfaucon

French scholar

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Erinna

Greek poet

Sappho (early 6th century B.C.), engraving 1866

Ancient Greek Literature Quiz

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Famous Poets and Poetic Form

Portrait of Plato (ca. 428- ca. 348 BC), Ancient Greek philosopher.

An Odyssey of Grecian Literature