Author Description

K.J. Dover and three other classical scholars have collaborated in writing this new historical survey of Greek literature from 700 B.C. to 550 A.D. The book concentrates on the principal authors and quotes many passages from their work in translation, to allow the reader to form his own impression of its quality. Attention is drawn both to the elements in Greek literature and attitudes to life which are unfamiliar to us, and to the elements which appeal most powerfully to succeeding generations. Although it is recoghized that this appeal lies above all in the most creative and inventive period (700-300 B.C.), an account is given of the eight hundred years which followed, which saw the results of earlier inspirations. Poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, science, philosophy, and oratory are all examined through the available literature.