lecture 5 part 1
was homer’s poetry in books?
no,it was an oral culture that people sang
where did people sing it ?
in the street and in the market place, in weddings and funerals, in war and in peace
3) what did Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides write ?
great Greek tragedies
4) were the plays read in books?
no, they were performances and shows that people attended
5) where did they attended these plays?
at the tragic festival every year
6)what was Greek culture?
a “living culture”
7) where did it come from?
it sprang from people’s everyday life
8)who participated in the production and consumption of this culture?
All the Greeks old and young, aristocrats and commoners, literate and illiterate
9) what happened to Greek culture in ancient Rome?
it became books that had no connection to everyday life and to average people.
10) did Romans speak Greek?
no they did not
11) did they have knowledge of Greek culture and their books?
no they did not
12) did every one get to read Greek books?
Only a small, educated minority had the ability to interact with these books.
13) why?
It was a dead culture, past, remote, and with no connections to the daily existence of the majority of the population
14) what was the Greek culture in Rome ?
a “museum” culture Some aristocrats used it to show off, but it did not inspire the present
15) why did Roman literature and criticism emerge?
as an attempt to imitate that Greek culture that was now preserved in books
16) why did the Romans engage the culture of Greece ?
they reproduced the books
17) who made the distinction “Living Culture” (in Greece) and “Monument culture” (in Rome )?
Florence Dupont
18)what is Ars Poetica?
a poem
19) who wrote Ars Poetica?
horace
20) what was Very influential in shaping European literary and artistic tastes ?
Ars Poetica
21) was horace a philosopher-critic ?
no he was not
22) were Plato or Aristotle philosopher-critics ?
yes they were
23) what was horace?
He was a poet writing advice in the form of poems
24) why?
to try to improve the artistic effort of his contemporaries
25)how should plays be written in his opinion ?
a comic subject should not be written in a tragic tone, and vice versa.
26) what advise does he give them?
not to present anything excessively violent or monstrous on stage,
27) what is a deus ex machine ?
a special effects machine
28) when did horace think it should be used ?
it should not be used unless absolutely necessary
29) how long does horace think a play should be?
should not be shorter or longer than five acts
30) what was horace’s opinion on the chorus?
should not sing between the acts anything which has no relevance to or cohesion with the plot
31) what is art or poetry ?
it should teach and please
32) what should the poem be conceived as by the writer ?
a form of static beauty similar to a painting