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欧洲文化入门笔记
European culture: an introduction
Introduction
Two major elements in European culture
European culture is made up of many elements, which have gone through changes over the centuries. Two of these elements are considered to be more enduring and they are: the Greco-Roman element, and the Judeo-Christian element.
Division one Greek culture and roman culture
Ⅰ. Greek culture
1. the Historical Context
Around 1200 B.C., a war was fought between Greece and Troy, a city on the Asiatic side of the Aegean, ending in the destruction of Troy.
Greek culture reached a high point of development in the 5th century B.C.① this was marked by the successful repulse of the Persian invasion early in the century.② the establishment of democracy.③ the flourishing of science, philosophy, literature, art and historical writing in Athens.
The century closed with civil war between Athens and Sparta.
In the second half of the 4th century B. C. all Greece was brought under the rule of Alexander, King of Macedon.
In 146 B.C. the Romans conquered Greece.
2. Social and Political Structure
Athens was a democracy. Democracy means “exercise of power by the whole people”, “the whole people” meant only the adult male citizens, women, children, foreigners and slaves were excluded.
The economy of Athens rested on(依靠) an immense amount of slave labour.
Once every four years, they had a big festival on Olympus Mount (奥林匹斯山) which included contests of sports. Thus began the Olympic Games. Revived in 1896, the Games have become the world’s foremost amateur sports competition.
3. Homer
Ancient Greeks considered Homer to be the author of their epics. He probably lived around 700 B.C. Two epics, the Iliad (伊里亚特) and the Odyssey (奥德赛), which are about great men and wars in the period 1200—1100 B.C.
The Iliad deals with (关于) the alliance of the states of the southern mainland of Greece, led by Agamemnon(阿加门侬) in their war against the city of Troy. The heroes are Hector (赫克托耳) on the Trojan side and Achilles(阿喀琉斯) and Odysseus(奥德修斯) on the Greek. In the final battle, Hector was killed by Achilles and Troy was sacked and burned by the Greeks.
The Odyssey deals with the return of Odysseus after the Trojan war to his home island of Ithaca (伊塔克岛). It describes many adventures he ran in (碰到) on his long sea voyage and how finally he was reunited with his faithful wife Penelope (贞妇).
4．Lyric Poetry
Of the many lyric poets of the time, two are still admired by readers today: Sappho and Pindar.
Sappho(萨福): woman poet of Lesbos(勒斯波斯), is noted for her love poems of passionate intensity, some of which are addressed to women. She was considered the most important lyric poet of ancient Greece. Two samples: (1) I could not hope to touch the sky with my two arms. (2) In gold sandals dawn like a thief fell upon me.
Pindar(品达)：best known for his odes celebrating the victories at the athletic games, such as the 14 Olympian odes
5. Drama
Early in their remote past, the Greeks started to perform plays at religious festivals. Out of these origins a powerful drama developed in the 5th century B.C.
a. Aeschylus (埃斯库罗斯)
He wrote such plays as Prometheus Bound, Persians, and Agamemnon. In these plays there are only two actors and a chorus. The plays are written in verse. Aeschylus is noted for his vivid character portrayal and majestic poetry.
b. Sophocles (索福克勒斯)
Author of plays like Oedipus the King(俄狄浦斯王), Electra（厄勒克特拉）, and Antigone（安提戈涅）. Contributed greatly to tragic art. He added a third actor and decreased the size of the chorus. Sophocles has had a strong impact on European literature. Some of his plots were taken over and adopted by later writers. The Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud’s term “the Oedipus complex”(恋母情结), the Electra complex (恋父情结), was also derived from Sophocles’s play.
c. Euripides (欧里庇得斯)
Euripides wrote mainly about women in such plays as Andromache (安德洛玛刻), Medea(美狄亚), and Trojan Woman(特洛伊妇女）. He was more of a realist than Aeschylus and Sophocles, concerned with conflicts. His characters are less heroic, more like ordinary people. He may be called the first writer of “problem plays”. In the 19th century, the English poetess Elizabeth Browning called him “Euripides the human”.
d. comedy
Comedy also flourished in the 5th century B.C. its best writer was Aristophanes (阿里斯托芬), who has left eleven plays, including: Frogs, Clouds, Wasps, and Birds. These plays are loose in plot and satirical in tone, full of clever parody and acute criticism. Coarse language is a striking feature of Aristophanes.
6. History
a. Herodotus (希罗多德)
he is often called “Father of History”, wrote about the wars between Greeks and Persians(<历史> <希腊波斯战争史>). He had a keen eye for drama and pathos. His history, full of anecdotes and digressions and lively dialogue, is wonderfully readable.
b. Thucydides (修昔底德)
He is more accurate as an historian. He told about the war between Athens and Sparta and between Athens and Syracuse, a Greek state on the island of Sicily. He was never dull, but wrote with imagination and power. Macaulay, himself an eminent historian, called Thucydides “the greatest historian that ever lived.”
7. Philosophy and Science
Pythagoras(毕达哥拉斯) was a bold thinker who had the idea that all things were numbers. He was the founder of scientific mathematics.
Heracleitue (赫拉克利特) believed fire to be the primary element of the universe, out of which everything else had arisen. To him “all is flux, nothing is stationery.” He also said “You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” “The sun is new everyday”
Democritus(德漠克利特) speculated about the atomic structure of matter. Indeed, he was one of the earliest exponents of the atomic theory. He was one of the earliest philosophical materialists.
a. Socrates
The greatest names in European philosophy are Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who were active in Athens in the 5th and 4th century back. Socrates taught Plato, who taught Aristotle.
b. Plato
He showed himself a brilliant stylist, writing with wit and grace. Indeed his Dialogues are important not only as philosophical writing but also as imaginative literature. Works: dialogues, the apology, symposium, the republic. Men have knowledge because of the existence of certain general “ideas”, like beauty, truth, goodness. Only these “ideas” are completely real, while the physical world is only relatively real. Plato’s philosophy is called Idealism.
Democritus looked upon the physical world as the only real thing and tried to explain thought and feeling in physical terms. Exponents of materialism.
c. Aristotle
He wrote epoch-making works, which dominated European thought for more than a thousand years. Dante called him,” the master of those who know” works: ethics, politics, poetics, and rhetoric
Aristotle differed from Plato
① For one thing, Aristotle emphasized direct observation of nature and insisted that theory should follow fact. This is different from Plato’s reliance on subjective thinking.
② Also, he thought that “form” (=idea) and matter together made up concrete individual realities. Here, too, he differed from Plato who held that ideas had a higher reality than the physical world.
③ What should be man’s aim in life? Aristotle’s answer was: happiness. But not happiness in the vulgar sense, but something that could only be achieved by leading a life of reason, goodness and contemplation.
d. Contending Schools of Thought
There had been the sophists(诡辩家), who were teachers of the art of arguing. The most eminent of them was Protagoras(普罗塔哥拉), born about 500 B.C. he is chiefly noted for his doctrine that “man is the measure of all things”
In the 4th century B.C. four schools of philosophers often argued with each other. They were the Cynics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans and the Stoics.
The Cynics(犬儒主义者) got their name because Diogenes(狄奥根尼), one of their leaders, decided to live like a dog and the word “cynic” means “dog” in Greek. He rejected all conventions---whether of religion, of manners, dress, housing, food, or of decency. He advocated self-sufficiency and extreme simplicity in life. In fact, he lived by begging. He had no patience with the rich and powerful. The story is told of how Alexander the Great visited him and asked if he wanted any favour. “Only to stand out of my light”
The Skeptics(怀疑论者) followed Pyrrhon(皮洛), who held that not all knowledge was attainable. Hence he and his followers doubted the truth of what others accepted as true, doubt about everything.
The Epicureans (享乐主义者) were disciples of Epicurus (伊壁鸠鲁), who believed pleasure to be the highest good in life, but by pleasure he meant, not sensual enjoyment, but freedom from pain and emotional upheaval. This he thought could be attained by the practice of virtue. Epicurus was a materialist. Following Democritus, he believed that the world consisted of atoms.
Opposed to the Epicureans were the Stoics (斯多葛派). To them, the most important thing in life was not “pleasure”, but “duty”. This developed into the theory that one should endure hardship and misfortune with courage. The chief Stoic was Zeno(芝诺), he was also a materialist, asserting the existence of the real world. He believed that there is no such thing as chance, and that the course of nature is rigidly determined by natural laws.
e. Science
Euclid (欧几里得) is well-known for Elements (几何原本), a textbook of geometry
Archimedes (阿基米德) did important work not only in geometry, but also in arithmetic, mechanic, and hydrostatics. He discovered that when a body is immersed in water. Its loss of weight is equal to the weight of the water displaced. To illustrate the principle of the lever, he is said to have told the king: “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.”
8. Art, Architecture, Sculpture and Pottery
a. Architecture
the most important temples is Parthenon (巴台农神庙), It is the most perfect of all the Greek temple, 240 feet long and 110 feet wide. It is a rectangular structure with evenly spaced lines of columns around.
Greek architecture can be grouped into three styles:① the Doric(陶立克式) style which is also called the masculine style, it is sturdy, powerful, severe looking and showing a good sense of proportions and numbers, while it is monotonous and unadorned. ② the Ionic(爱奥尼亚柱型建筑) style which is also called he feminine style, it is graceful and elegant, it often shows a wealth of ornament. ③the Corinthian(科林斯式)style, which is known for its ornamental luxury.
Two famous temples: the Acrpolis at Athens (雅典卫城) and the Parthenon(巴台农神庙).
b. Sculpture
ⅰDiscus Thrower(掷铁饼者)
ⅱVenus de Milo The most famous of all the sculptures of Venus. Its broken arms have long been the focus of discussion in artistic circles.
ⅲ Laocoon group about 125 B.C. (拉奥孔群像)
c. Pottery
There were Black-figure paintings and Red figure painting
The Black-figure paintings are paintings on pottery that have red background and black figure. The Red-figure paintings are paintings on pottery that have black background and pink figure.
9. Impact
The Greeks set an example by the bold effort they made to understand the world by the use of human reason. In literature, countless writers have quoted, adapted, borrowed from Homer’s epics, Sappho’s lyrics, the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides, Aristophanes’ comedies, Plato’s Dialogues. Examples abound. ⑴ in the early part of 19th century, in English alone, three young romantic poets expressed their admiration of Greek culture in works which have themselves become classics: Byron’s isles of Greece, Shelley’s Prometheus unbound and Keats’s ode on a Grecian urn. ⑵ in the 20th century , there are Homeric parallels in the Irishman James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece Ulysses. |
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发表于 2007-12-17 13:33
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