European literature and art - Greek and Roman literature Greek myths and epics are the products of the most perfectly developed human childhood and have eternal charm. Both myths and epics are creations of the whole Greek people. After hundreds of years of tempering among the people, they have unique achievements in many aspects. Greece produced a series of outstanding writers, such as the lyric poets Sappho, Anacreon, and Pindar, the fable writer Aesop, the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and the comedian Aris Thorfinn, philosophers and literary theorists Plato and Aristotle, as well as orators, historians, etc. In particular, tragedy and comedy writers closely combined their creations with the democratic politics of Greek slavery and passionately fought for the cause of democracy. Their works have profound ideological content. Aristotle formed a complete set of literary and artistic theories in the fourth century BC, especially the theory about tragedy, which had a profound influence on the subsequent development of European literary and artistic theories. Ancient Greek literature was original both ideologically and artistically, and later European realism and romanticism methods can be traced back to Greece. The main genres of European literature, such as epic poems, didactic poems, lyric poems, pastoral poems in poetry, tragedies and comedies in drama, history, speeches, philosophical treatises, dialogues, literary criticism, biographies, legends and fables in prose, etc. Wait, it all originated in Greece. The development of Greek literature can be roughly divided into three stages: the transitional stage from clan to slave society, when myths and epics were produced; the classical period, the heyday of slavery, produced tragedy, comedy, prose and literary theory; Hellenism During this period, literature advocated rhetorical skills and was poor in content. Its main achievement was the new comedy. After the second century AD, the areas affected by Greek influence were annexed by the Roman Empire. Although there were still Greek-speaking writers, ancient Greek literature had lost its independence. Although the overall achievements of Roman literature are not as good as those of Greece. Roman literature had a particularly great influence on the Renaissance, Classicism and eighteenth-century European literature. Through Roman literary works, people can see the face of some lost Greek works. Roman literature developed Greek literature in some aspects, and was original in some aspects. For example, Virgil's epic poem shaped the epic poem in ancient European literature; Cicero's speech reached the highest level of ancient eloquence in terms of technique. ; Lucretius's philosophical poetry occupies a unique position in ancient literature; Plautus' comedy is closely integrated with Roman life and has achieved certain achievements; satirical poetry is relatively developed in Roman literature; in addition, aphorisms, Novels are also prominent in ancient literature; in terms of literary theory, Horace first proposed the dual role of education and entertainment in literature and art. The development of Roman literature can be divided into four stages: the beginning period from the middle of the third century BC to the middle of the second century BC, when most of the works were lost, and the main achievements were comedies; the first and last stages, when great achievements were made in both prose and poetry. It is called the "Golden Age"; the first and second centuries AD, that is, the early days of the empire, are called the "Silver Age", with satirical poetry and history being more prominent; and after the third century, it is the decline stage. After that, Christian writers became the mainstream among writers writing in Latin. In addition, there was also dialect literature derived from Latin, and European literature entered the Middle Ages.