The Norton Book of Classical Literature
"The literature of the classical world that has survived is a pitiful remnant of what once existed...." So begins Bernard Knox's preface to an anthology that introduces the modern reader to the enormous breadth and rich variety of that "pitiful remnant" - the foundation of Western literature and culture, the inspiration for writers from Dante to Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot. However much - or little - of it we may have read, classical literature has shaped our world and how we perceive it. Yet...
Search in google:
"The literature of the classical world that has survived is a pitiful remnant of what once existed...." So begins Bernard Knox's preface to an anthology that introduces the modern reader to the enormous breadth and rich variety of that "pitiful remnant" - the foundation of Western literature and culture, the inspiration for writers from Dante to Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot. However much - or little - of it we may have read, classical literature has shaped our world and how we perceive it. Yet for most of us classical writing is little more than a narrow circle of legendary figures. The names of Homer, Aeschylus, Plato, Virgil, and Saint Augustine are familiar, but behind their work lies a vast fellowship of writers with a common mythological and artistic heritage. The Norton Book of Classical Literature thus includes not only the "greats" but also significant though lesser known figures and traditions: archaic lyric poets, Alexandrian Greeks, and Roman satirists, for example. Also recovered for us are the breathtaking variety of forms that literature took - epic, lyric, ode, dithyramb, tragedy, comedy, history, dialogue, idyll, epigram, satire, to name a few. The translations selected for this collection, from classic nineteenth-century versions to as yet unpublished manuscripts, reflect the diversity of the works themselves and bring them to us with eloquence and clarity. In his brilliant introduction - an account of the development of classical literature from the origins of the Greek language and Homer to the fall of Rome and Saint Augustine - Knox distills for the general reader a complex literary tradition and allows even those with a thorough knowledge of classical writing to see that tradition anew. Informative notes throughout the book allow works - some long forgotten, ignored, or misinterpretedto emerge, as vital and compelling today as they were so many centuries ago. From the lyrical precision of Archilochus and Sappho to the epic sweep of Apollonius
Preface21Introduction23Greece61Homer (late 8th century B.C.?)63Hesiod (7th century B.C.?)187Archilochus (7th century B.C.)202Tyrtaeus (7th century B.C.)209Alcman (late 7th century B.C.)212Hipponax (middle 6th century B.C.)216Alcaeus (late 7th century-middle 6th century B.C.)218Sappho (a contemporary of Alcaeus)223Xenophanes (570-early 5th century B.C.)231Mimnermus (2nd half of 7th century B.C.)234Theognis (6th century B.C.)235Solon (c. 640-after 561 B.C.)238Anacreon (c. 570-? B.C.)242Ibycus (6th century B.C.)246Simonides (556-468 B.C.)247Pindar (518-after 446 B.C.)251Bacchylides (6th-5th centuries B.C.)263Praxilla (5th century B.C.)266Herodotus (490-c. 425 B.C.)267Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)300Thucydides (middle 5th century-399 B.C.?)334Sophocles (496-406/5 B.C.)357Euripides (485-406 B.C.)404Aristophanes (455?-c. 385 B.C.)446Plato (427-341 B.C.)477Menander (342-c. 292 B.C.)512Theophrastus (c. 370-287 B.C.)522Callimachus (c. 310-240 B.C.)527Apollonius Rhodius (c. 295-215 B.C.)534Theocritus (1st half of 3rd century B.C.)547Herodas (c. 300-250 B.C.)566Erinna (4th century B.C.?)572Plato575Anyte (early 4th century B.C.?)576Antipater of Sidon (2nd century B.C.)577Diotimos579Nikarchos579Asclepiades of Samos (c. 320-? B.C.)580Leonidas of Tarentum (1st half of 3rd century B.C.)580Alexander Aetolus581Dioskorides582Meleager (c. 100 B.C.)582Glaukos583Philodemos584Krinagoras585Automedon585Erucius586Antipater of Salonica (1st century B.C-1st century A.D.?)586Marcus Argentarius (1st century B.C.-1st century A.D.?)587Pompeius588Lucilius589Nikarchos589Paulus Silentiarius (6th century A.D.)590Rome593Lucretius (98-c. 55 B.C.)595Catullus (c. 84-c. 54 B.C.)604Horace (65-8 B.C.)614Virgil (70-19 B.C.)639Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17)702Propertius (c. 50 B.C.-after 16 B.C.)716Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17)727Tacitus (A.D. 56/7-after 117)786Petronius Arbiter (?-A.D. 65)793Juvenal (55?-138?)813Marcus Aurelius (121-180; Emperor, 161-180)827Aurelius Augustinus (Saint Augustine) (354-530)833For Further Reading853Permissions854Index861
