lecture 1

1) what is classical antiquity ?
ancient Greece and ancient Rome (also called the classic,and the ancient)

2) what relationship do we need to know to understand literature and literary criticism in western culture ?
we need to understand its relationship to classical antiquity.

3) why do we need to understand that relationship ?
because European and western literature and cultures were produced as a recreation ,a revival of the classical cultures of Greece and Rome .

4) how did the western culture perceive Greece and Rome?
they considered them the most perfect civilization .

5) when were Greece and Rome considered the most perfect civilization ?
from the 16th to the 20th centuries

6) what was produced in imitation of classical antiquity ?
western drama, poetry, literary criticism, art, education, politics, fashion, architecture, painting.

7) how would you describe the west’s relationship with antiquity?
full of contradictions and ambivalence.

8) who conquered Greece ?
Rome

9) who wrote “captive Greece took its wild conqueror captive” ?
Horace in a letter to augustus

10)why did Horace write that ?
he had a sense of inferiority and ambivalence.

11) why did Horace have a feeling of inferiority and ambivalence?
because although Rome conquered Greece politically and militarily , it could never produce a refined culture like Greece

12) what is refined culture ?
poetry, philosophy…etc

13)is the sense of inferiority only found in Horace’s work?
no it’s found everywhere in Roman (latin) literature (eg; Quintilian,Seneca)

14)whose culture was more sophisticated ?
the Romans felt that Greece was, and thats why they felt inferior

15) who wrote “no past life has been lived to lend us glory, and that which has existed before us is not ours”?
Seneca

16) what did he mean when he said that ?
that they don't have a past to be proud of , the glory and past wasn't theirs it was Greece’s

17) who said “man who follows another not only finds nothing ; he is not even looking”
seneca in Epistulae Morales

18) what did he mean by that ?
that Rome were followers

19)what was education like in Rome?
for centuries it was simply an imitation of greek masterpieces (in literature , rhetoric , painting ..etc)


20) what did Horace advise his readers?
to imitate the greeks and never try to invent anything

21) why did he give them that piece of advice ?
because he thought their inventions would be weak and unattractive compared to the imitations.

22)why did the Romans fail to match the Greeks?
because imitation cannot produce originality

23)what were the Romans successful at ?
they were successful warriors

*rome felt inferior to Greece because they were simple and uncivilized even though they were the biggest empire in the world