Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- archaic:archaic-period [2013/10/05 23:17] – [Thaletas] fredmond
+++ archaic:archaic-period [2020/11/25 12:00] (current) – old revision restored (2014/01/29 08:40) fredmond
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Archaic (Pre-Classical) Period ======
+====== Archaic Period ======
 ===== Acusilaus of Argos =====
@@ Line 268: / Line 268: @@
 ===== Theognis =====
+Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC. The work attributed to him consists of gnomic poetry quite typical of the time, featuring ethical maxims and practical advice about life. He was the first Greek poet known to express concern over the eventual fate and survival of his own work and, along with Homer, Hesiod and the authors of the Homeric Hymns, he is among the earliest poets whose work has been preserved in a continuous manuscript tradition (the work of other archaic poets is preserved as scattered fragments). In fact more than half of the extant elegiac poetry of Greece before the Alexandrian period is included in the approximately 1,400 verses attributed to him. Some of these verses inspired ancient commentators to value him as a moralist yet the entire corpus is valued today for its "warts and all" portrayal of aristocratic life in archaic Greece.
 [[archaic:theognis|Theognis Page]]
 ===== Tyrtaeus =====
+Greek poet who composed verses in Sparta around the time of the Second Messenian War, the date of which isn't clearly established—sometime in the latter part of the seventh century BC. He is known especially for political and military elegies, exhorting Spartans to support the state authorities and to fight bravely against the Messenians, who had temporarily succeeded in wresting their estates from Spartan control. His verses mark a critical point in Spartan history, when Spartans began to turn from their flourishing arts and crafts and from the lighter verses of poets like Alcman (roughly his contemporary), to embrace a regime of military austerity: "life in Sparta became spartan".
 [[archaic:tyrtaeus|Tyrtaeus Page]]
 ===== Xenophanes =====
+Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic. Xenophanes lived a life of travel, having left Ionia at the age of 25 and continuing to travel throughout the Greek world for another 67 years. Some scholars say he lived in exile in Siciliy. Knowledge of his views comes from fragments of his poetry, surviving as quotations by later Greek writers. To judge from these, his elegiac and iambic poetry criticized and satirized a wide range of ideas, including Homer and Hesiod, the belief in the pantheon of anthropomorphic gods and the Greeks' veneration of athleticism. He is the earliest Greek poet who claims explicitly to be writing for future generations, creating "fame that will reach all of Greece, and never die while the Greek kind of songs survives."
 [[archaic:xenophanes|Xenophanes Page]]
 ===== Zeno =====
+Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of southern Italy and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell has described as "immeasurably subtle and profound".
 [[archaic:zeno|Zeno Page]]