該書首先介紹了荷馬史詩(shī)《伊利亞特》和《奧德賽》之前的歷史及作品產(chǎn)生的時(shí)代,回顧了稍后的抒情詩(shī)人,如薩福和品達(dá)。接著介紹了希臘古典作品、神奇的藝術(shù)以及早期民主的輝煌時(shí)代評(píng)介了索?死账挂约八膭∽骷彝、歷史學(xué)家希羅多德和修西得底斯以及柏拉圖引人入勝的蘇格拉底對(duì)話錄。在簡(jiǎn)要描述了下一個(gè)時(shí)代,即希臘文化的希臘化時(shí)期后——田園詩(shī)人忒奧克里托斯的作品屬于這個(gè)時(shí)期——該書緊接著介紹了羅馬文學(xué)的黃金時(shí)代。這部分介紹了生活于共和國(guó)晚期和充滿了戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)與輝煌的動(dòng)蕩不安的羅馬帝國(guó)早期的詩(shī)人和思想家們,其中包括集戰(zhàn)士、歷史學(xué)家和獨(dú)裁者于一身的尤利烏斯·愷撒,集政治家、律師和作家于一身的西賽羅,詩(shī)人維吉爾(《埃涅伊德》的作者)、賀拉斯、奧維德以及羅馬最偉大的歷史學(xué)家塔西佗。
還有一些章節(jié)討論了政治與社會(huì)、宗教、文化和藝術(shù)、語(yǔ)言、戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)、經(jīng)濟(jì)、技術(shù)及哲學(xué),俾使讀者能夠理解與欣賞不同背景下的文學(xué)。從一開始,該書就對(duì)英譯古典作品的閱讀、古代人名的形式和發(fā)音、古典詩(shī)歌中的格律等提出了指導(dǎo)性的意見,并就最佳譯文提供了說(shuō)明。附錄部分就存世的古典文本以及文本考據(jù)方面提供了更加專業(yè)化的信息。
《古典文學(xué)里程碑》是以西方文學(xué)從古代到20世紀(jì)早期的作家與作品為內(nèi)容的三卷本系列叢書的最后一本。在本冊(cè)里,菲利普·蓋斯凱爾對(duì)古希臘和羅馬文學(xué)大師們的英譯作品進(jìn)行了介紹。
該書適合于英語(yǔ)專業(yè)的本科生、研究生、從事英語(yǔ)教學(xué)的教師以及英語(yǔ)文學(xué)愛好者閱讀。
Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Reading the classics today - the classical
canon - the classics in translation - the form
and pronunciation of Greek and Latin names
- metre in classical verse - dates - Roman
numerals - maps
I The Homeric age
1 The spread of civilisation: the past in the
present - from neolithic tribalism to the
first cities - the Minoans
2 The Greeks: the Mycenaeans - Dark-Age
Greece - the Greek language - the Greek
alphabet - Bronze-Age society and culture
- Mycenaean religion
3 Homer and epic poetry: the background
- the Iliad - the Odyssey - Hesiod
II Greece in the fifth century BC
From Archaic to early-Classical Greece:
Athens - Sparta - the Persian Wars - women,
resident foreigners, and slaves - colonisation
5 Religion, the arts, education, and books:
religious beliefs and practices - architecture
- painting - sculpture - music - education,
literacy, and books
6 Lyric poetry: Pindar and his predecessors:
the lyric - Sappho and Anacreon - Pindar
7 Sophocles and Athenian drama: tragedy - the
three tragedians - Aeschylus - Sophocles -
Euripides - Aristophanes and comedy
8 Herodotus and Greek history: Greek historians
- Herodotus and the Persian Wars - Thucydides
and the Peloponnesian War - Xenophon and
the Persian Expedition
9 Plato and philosophy: the pre-Socratics -
Socrates - Plato - Aristotle
Interchapter: the Hellenistic age
Alexanders empire and its successors
- language and society - the visual arts
- literature - history - philosophy and
science - scholarship and libraries
III Late-Republican and early-Imperial Rome
10 The expansion of Rome: from city-state to
superstate - the Latin languag~ - Roman names
11 Republic and Empire: conquest abroad, strife
at home - politics and society - religion
12 Maintaining the state: economics and
technology - the Roman army
13 The arts: painting, sculpture, and architecture
- drama: Plautus, Terence, Seneca - education,
books, and libraries
14 Cicero: rhetoric and philosophy - the legacy of
Greece: rhetoric, philosophy - Cicero - Seneca
15 Virgil: from pastoral to epic - Theocritus and
pastoral poetry - Virgil - the Eclogues -
the Georgics - the Aeneid - Virgils reputation
and influence
16 Horace: epigram, lyric, and satire - Catullus
- Horace - Juvenal
17 Ovid: love poetry and the novel - Ovid -
the novel - Longus - Petronius - Apuleius
18 Tacitus and Roman history: Roman historians
- Caesar and the Gallic War - SaUust - Livy -
Tacitus - Plutarch - Suetonius
Afterword
Appendix: Classical studies
The survival of ancient texts - the
transmission of texts - textual
scholarship - history and archaeology
Reference bibliography
Index and guide to pronunciation