Hi everyone welcome back to my channel. If you're new here my name is Jean
and I have a background in classical mythology particularly pertaining to the ancient Greeks,
that is where my area of study lies. I am very close to finishing my PhD on the subject and
I also run an ancient history podcast called That's Ancient History. So today I wanted to film
a video that I’ve been asked to film for years now I filmed variations on this theme but nothing ever
quite so in-depth or specifically targeted at anyone interested in getting into Greek literature
and where to start. Obviously you can tell from the title we are here to talk about ancient Greek
literature specifically and how to get into it, where to start with the various genres,
what you might want to pick up to learn about the myths and just generally how to access that
subject area. This isn't true of all countries but in the UK in particular there is a lot of
classism tied up in the traditional study of classics and ancient history as a subject.
As somebody who comes from a state educated background, a working class background where this
topic was never explored in my formal education prior to university it is therefore something
I’m very passionate about creating access to and making sure that everybody has access to. Because
as I can vouch this is a fascinating area of study and it is not one that belongs to any one class,
particularly the upper classes as it has been historically and I therefore want to be part of
an ongoing movement to break down those barriers, to break down those boundaries and to remove some
of the pomp and pretence around the subject. So if you're interested stick around and I will
share with you some of my tips and recommendations for starting off with ancient Greek literature.
So I want to start with the topic of epic poetry. So epic poetry is probably one of the most famous
and popular genres of writing from ancient Greece. It was something that garnered a lot of respect
from the ancient Greeks and it is probably the oldest genre in that prior to ever being
written down it was the way that they orally transmitted stories through generations. And
two of the books that are the most famous from ancient Greece and therefore some of the most
important to read if you're getting into the subject because they're referenced throughout
both ancient literature and modern literature are the Odyssey and Iliad by Homer. So these are
pieces of archaic Greek literature both of which are epic poems dealing with events surrounding
the Trojan war. So chronologically it's the Iliad that comes first in terms of events.
This specifically follows the soldier Achilles and his rage and his emotional turmoil during a short
period in the Trojan war. So it doesn't cover the whole sort of decade that is the war, it doesn't
cover the infamous trojan horse, it’s very much honing in on Achilles’ emotions and experiences
in some of the final days of the war and as much as this is obviously a very important piece of
literature and beloved by many I personally feel that the Odyssey is one that is much more
accessible to new readers of ancient literature. Whereas this obviously takes place over a few
days, very much honing in on emotion and events surrounding a war, this one is an adventure story,
it's the journey of the hero Odysseus following the trojan war as he attempts to get back home
but is waylaid by a myriad of different mythical beasts and gods and creatures that get in his
way. And not only do we get Odysseus's perspective we also hear from his son and wife who are still
at home waiting for him wondering if Odysseus himself is even alive. And in this book you will
encounter so many famous names and events and get a really good overview of one of the most heavily
referenced pieces of Greek mythology. If you're a fan of Circe by madeline miller this is probably
your first port of call for reading more and I would really really highly recommend this which is
one of the more recent translations to come out in english by emily Wilson. It is a verse translation
as is this translation of the Iliad which would also be my first recommendation by
richmond lattimore and I completely understand that verse may be a little bit intimidating,
it does stay a little bit truer to the original text because it retains that style of writing,
however if you are really put off by the idea of reading something in verse which I completely
understand then it might be worth checking out E. V. Rieu's translation of the Odyssey
which was actually my first experience of this text and it makes for very accessible reading.
So those are obviously the first two I had to mention
but another piece of archaic Greek epic poetry that you might want to check out
is the works of Hesiod. So this is a bind-up of Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days which are two
shorter epic poems they might be better described as didactic poems,
particularly the works and days, that explore the origins of human life on earth. These poems
take you back through the family tree of some of the most important, most well-known Greek gods so
it gives you a really good introduction to the topic of Greek mythology and also the creation
of humanity through Pandora and Prometheus and all the myths tied up in human life. Now with
any piece of ancient Greek literature there are a lot of layers to dig deep into but that is what
this book is on the surface and I think because of that it makes for very easy reading. It's also
very short and this is the oxford world classics edition which is the one that I always go back to.
Now I realize I primarily recommended verse translations of Homer but my next epic poem
I’m actually recommending a prose translation because I just think it's so readable and this
video is all about accessibility and getting in to the topic. So this is Jason in the Golden Fleece
by Apollonius of Rhodes. Again it's a little bit shorter than Homer's epic poems and this
one dates from quite a few centuries later from the hellenistic period. Now personally this is my
favourite piece of epic literature but that's going to vary depending on what kind of reader
you are. I love this book and I love the story and I love the mythology it deals with. It is
the story of the hero jason and his crew of argonauts who sail across the seas in order to
get the golden fleece from the king of Colchis and it's also when jason meets the princess Media
and about their romance and how she helps him and his crew. If you're interested in
learning more about epic poetry as a genre it's really interesting to compare to homer's work
because it's actually quite different in tone and style and it very much plays on political themes
and themes in literature that were important to people in Apollonians of Rhodes’ times. However
regardless of all of that it is just a very compelling narrative and you don't need
to do a super deep dive into the genre and the history of epic poetry to enjoy it and I think
that is first and foremost what I want to get across in this video.
Of course epic poetry is not the only kind of poetry to come out of ancient Greece so
I wanted to mention two more recommendations here another of which is attributed in many editions to
Homer and these are the Homeric Hymns although the consensus is that these were written by a
array of various other authors and we just you know call them the Homeric Hymns. I know
that's very confusing, I mean you will come across that on a few occasions in ancient
Greek literature where things are attributed to authors that no one actually believes wrote them
and this is one of them however this is essentially a collection of really important myths
in hymn or poem format. So you will come across some of the original versions of the Demeter,
Hades and Persephone myth in here. And some veer more towards storytelling than others,
some of them are just more breakdowns of the gods themselves so if you're interested in Greek
mythology and who the main pantheon of Greek gods are then this is a great place to go and aside
from the fact that it's written in a poetic style it effectively reads like a short story collection
Now a name you might be familiar with even if you've never read her is Sappho because Sappho's
name has essentially become synonymous with saphic love and women loving each other whether they're
bisexual pansexual lesbian what have you. Sappho is effectively an icon in the LGBTQ+ community
because she is an example of an ancient woman who loved other women and these are her poems.
Now Sappho's poems may generally feel more familiar to modern poetry because they're
not in that epic style, they're shorter although a lot of them aren't in full, some of them have
only survived in pieces and you're only actually reading pieces of them. But even those pieces,
even those poems only have two lines surviving are so beautiful that this book is so well
worth reading. I think any poetry lover of any era could get something from this collection.
There is lots on the themes of love and family and it is just also really wonderful to be able
to read something written by a woman from antiquity because that is so rare and Sappho
is really the only ancient Greek woman whose work survives in any substantial form so yes.
So aside from poetry one of the most popular forms of ancient Greek literature that ancient Greeks
would have experienced was that performed on the stage and that is to say that a lot of these would
not have been read by ancient people, by ancient Greeks, they would have been seen but today
you can obviously read them or go and see them on occasion because they are often performed in
new and exciting ways which is super cool. But it was a very important part of ancient Greek life so
it's a very important part of an introduction to ancient Greek literature. Particularly in
Athens where most of these tragedies and comedies come from these were part of religious festivals.
Tragedies and comedies were performed as part of religious celebrations and religious festivals
and what is really interesting is that most ancient Greek tragic plays would have been
written and performed in trilogies so three plays one after another that told the story
of a whole myth and almost all of the ancient Greek tragedies that were written and performed
were about ancient Greek mythology. The only ancient Greek trilogy to survive in full however
is Aeschylus’ Oresteia. So no other ancient Greek tragedy has come down to us with its companions,
this is the only one where we have the entire story arc as it would have been performed in all
three plays, so I do think this one is probably one of the best to start with in terms of getting
to grips with the genre of ancient Greek tragedy, it doesn't feel so much like a vignette within a
larger story it feels like a whole story if you read them all back to back. The three
plays in this book, the three plays in this book tell the story of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and
Orestes their son, the murder the revenge and all of the drama intertwined in their lives.
But there were two more very significant names in ancient Greek tragedy
from classical athens who were Sophocles and Euripides so I had to include a little bit of
them in this video. Some of the most popular plays by Sophocles are his three Theban plays
so these are usually collected together but they are not from a complete trilogy,
they all deal with the same myth which I know is a little bit misleading and they can be read
consecutively to get a good idea of the myth as a whole but these were not performed together,
they were written separately just to be clear. And those are Antigone, Oedipus the King,
and Oedipus at Colonus, although the order that they are in this this collection is slightly odd,
Oedipus the king really should be read first if you're going to read them chronologically.
And it's just another really great insight into some really famous Greek mythology.
Then lastly I wanted to mention that this collection of Euripides plays from oxford
world classics which collects together Medea, Hippolytus, Electra and Helen so each play in this
collection again would have come from a separate trilogy but deals with the myth of one specific
ancient Greek women and Medea is probably his most famous. Now I do want to provide a
caveat to anyone going into Medea because I know it's a really popular entry point
into ancient Greek tragedy and I understand why it's a really compelling play, there's a lot of
emotion in there, it's really fascinating but it is Euripides version of this myth. So the
thing about ancient Greek myths is each one has numerous different versions and it's not
uncommon to find versions of the myths that we don't find anywhere else before the tragedians
in a tragic play. That's not to say that they made them up off the top of their head,
that's also to say that these are not the only versions. So famously in Medea, Medea kills her
own children and she gets this reputation as the mother murderess but I always like to point out
that this is not the most popular version of that myth until Euripides comes along. More often than
not Medea does not kill her children and she deserves both sides of her story to be known.
However despite the popularity of tragedy it didn't seem fair not to include some comedy
because one of the things I love about ancient Greek comedy, Aristophanes in particular is how
recognizable some of this humour is. You will find in Aristophanes straight up fart jokes that
just demonstrate the way in which some things just never seem to go out of style. And it also breaks
down I think some of that pretence and that pomp that surrounds ancient Greek literature,
it gets this reputation for being quite intimidating and high and mighty but honestly
half of its fart jokes so I would definitely suggest checking out a little bit of Aristophanes
if you want a little bit of insight into ancient Greek humour. This is a collection
that binds together Birds, Lysistrata, the Assembly Women and Wealth. There are
various different plays by Aristophanes out there but I think again Lysistrata
is probably one of his most famous and most popular so it's a really great entry point
and you might recognize it in some more modern retellings that play on that myth and its themes.
I then have three works of prose none of which are like the other so each of the books I hold
here are very different from each other but each one was written in prose. The first one is the
earliest one in this pile and that is Plato's Symposium. So I had to include a little bit of
philosophy in here, I did opt not to include historical writing in this video just to you
know keep some sort of focus and not to overwhelm you I also think that's kind of like a whole other
topic of discussion that you could go really in depth with so as you've already seen most of the
books in this video deal with myth and that is very common of ancient Greek literature a lot
of their literature dealt with their myths and that is also true of Plato's Symposium. This is
a philosophical work, it is told in the style of a group of friends who have congregated together at
a symposium which is in effect a kind of drinking party that men would have attended together
and they are all sitting around the symposium telling their versions of love and what
love is especially in terms of the god Eros, who he is and what influence he has on society,
and each has a very different theory. So when you're reading this you're getting lots of little
different philosophical ideas of what love is and it references a variety of different myths.
I think it's a really really interesting little book and a really great introduction to Plato.
There's a lot more Plato to read, he remains one of the most famous philosophers of all time not
only from ancient Greece and some of his work is quite dense and it's a little bit intimidating
and that is fair to say but this one I think is perfect because it's a little bit shorter,
it's a little bit fun and unlike some of his more political writings you don't need
to have as great an understanding of ancient Greek society itself to jump into this work.
We then have two works which actually date to the roman
empire. So everything else I’ve shown you in this video so far dates to the BCE years aka
before the christian era whereas these two books date to the CE years which we're currently in
or the AD years as some of you might know them but neither of them are Roman literature, because
this is a video all about Greek literature. If you would like a video introducing you
to latin and roman literature however do let me know. And they are both quite different.
This one right here is my favourite piece of ancient Greek literature for so many reasons. This
is Longus's Daphnis and Chloe and if you've seen me talk about ancient literature before you've
probably seen me mention this because like I said it's my favourite and I take any opportunity to
talk about it or recommend it and I love it like I said for many reasons. I love it for the layers,
it's part in the history of ancient Greek literature. This is a prose novel or prose fiction
story that's an entire creation by the author as opposed to being a version of a myth and that's
a type of ancient Greek literature that didn't become popularized until the hellenistic era. And
we only have five ancient Greek novels surviving at all, all of which I’ve read. I actually did my
undergraduate dissertation on the topic although it's got nothing to do with what I researched now
but this still holds a very very strong place in my heart because not only does it have a lot
of history behind it it's also just such a fun readable story. The edition I have here is the
translation by Ronald Mcail published by oxford world classics, as you've seen I have quite a few
of their editions, they are one of my favourite go to's if I don't know which translation I want
in particular and it is in essence the story of the shepherdess and goat-herd Chloe and
Daphnis who have reached a stage in their life where they've started to feel sexual attraction
for the other and don't know what to do about. It is comical it's entertaining and it's just
like I said so readable. One that I think just demonstrates how old the desire for entertaining
literature is and also makes you feel a little bit closer to the ancient Greeks themselves.
We then have my final recommendation which is the Library of Greek Mythology by Apollodorus
and this is my go-to recommendation for anybody who wants an overview of Greek mythology from
the original literature. Of course you can read modern volumes, I myself have written
a children's non-fiction title all about Greek mythology which would introduce you to the myths,
in fact shall I show you, shall I plug? This is my time to self insert plug right here. I have
written like I said a volume of Greek myths aimed at children called Greek Myths meet the heroes
gods and monsters of ancient greece written by myself and illustrated by the incredible Katie
Ponder and of course there are volumes like this aimed at adults but if you want to return to the
ancient literature if you want to read familiar and unfamiliar myths all in one place then read
Apollodorus because this is basically a collection of short stories some of which
are literally a paragraph long others of which last for many pages and they also demonstrate
the way in which ancient Greek mythology is intertwined because often one myth leads into
another chronologically and characters you know from one myth actually meet characters you know
from another myth in another. This edition even has a glossary at the back so you can look up
any names you want to learn more about or have just read online and don't know who they are
to read their story. It is the closest thing in ancient Greek literature you will find to a full
collection of their myths in one place, it's not that because that doesn't exist but it's
the closest thing you'll find. So that is my introduction to ancient Greek literature with my
recommendations of where to start. I am more than happy to answer any further questions you have in
the comments down below about translations, about editions, about going deeper into these genres
or looking at other genres I haven't mentioned in this video, just feel free to leave your thoughts
and questions down below like I mentioned and I will get to answering them but in the meantime
thank you for watching happy reading and i'll see you again in the next one bye everyone