Ancient Greek Literature (before AD 350)
Ancient Greek literature refers to literature written in Ancient Greek from the oldest surviving written works in the Greek language until approximately the fifth century AD and the rise of the Byzantine Empire. The Greek language arose from the proto-Indo-European language, though roughly one-third of its words cannot be derived from various reconstructions of the tongue. A number of alphabets and syllabaries had been used to render Greek, but surviving Greek literature was written in a Phoenician-derived alphabet that arose primarily in Greek Ionia and was fully adopted by Athens by the fifth century BC.
Read more about this topic: Greek Literature
Famous quotes containing the words ancient, greek and/or literature:
“Even as fog continues to lie in the valleys, so does ancient sin cling to the low places, the depressions in the world consciousness.”
—Dewitt Bodeen (1908–1988)
“That is a very good question. I don’t know the answer. But can you tell me the name of a classical Greek shoemaker?”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“Scholarship cannot do without literature.... It needs literature to float it, to set it current, to authenticate it to all the race, to get it out of closets and into the brains of men who stir abroad.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)