欧洲文化简明教程第一编.ppt

1、European Culture An Introduction,Classic Age: Greek Culture and Roman Culture,I. Greek Culture,1. The Historical Background the Trojan War: 1194B.C.-1184B.C. Many stories have been told about this war. But Homer told the story more vividly in his Iliad. a more glorious period : the 5th century B.C.

2、The Greek people drove away the Persian invaders; Athens established democracy in which only the adult male Greek citizens could use their power and rights and developed its economy depending on the slave system; The Olympic Games originated from ancient Greece, and it revived in 1896.,But when fore

3、ign threat was removed, a civil war broke out between Athens and Sparta at the end of the century. Macedon (one Greek state) became more powerful under the leadership of Alexander the Kings who unified the whole Greece in the second half of the 4th century B. C. Greece was conquered by the Romans in

4、 146B.C. 2. Literature A. Homer (荷马)(around 700 B.C. ) two epics: the Iliad (伊利亚特， 另译伊利昂记) and the Odyssey (奥德赛，另译奥德修记),Iliad : the war between Troy and the united forces of the states on the mainland of southern Greece The alliance of the Greek army was led by Agamemnon with Achilles, Odysseus and

5、other generals as their main commanders. Trojan forces were led by Hector. The war ended with the victory on the Greek side.,Odyssey: the story about the return of Odysseus after the Trojan War to his country Ithaca The first 12 volumes: the adventures on the sea. The latter 12 volumes deal with the

6、 adventures on land. The epic ended with his union with his faithful wife Penelope after his test-flirtation with her.,Sappho (ca. 612-580 B.C.) born in Lesbos the most important lyric poet of ancient Greece famous for her burning love poems George Gordon Lord Byron called her “burning Sappho” .,Pin

7、dar (ca. 518-438 B.C.) famous for his odes celebrating the victories at the sports games, such as the 14 Olympian odes His style was imitated by many later poets of renown such as John Dryden and others. John Keats wrote some of the greatest odes ever written in English history.,B. Lyric Poetry two

8、famous lyric poets: Sappho (萨福) and Pindar (品达),C. Drama Greek drama developed quickly and prosperously in the 5th century B.C. based on its rich tradition.,Tragedy In Greek drama of this period, the achievements of tragedy are greater than those of comedy. The tragedies mostly wrote about royal fam

9、ilies, noble families and great heroes. The term “tragedy” is applied only to high-born people. Compared with Chinese drama, “tragedy” mainly talks about the fate of the common people. The Greek drama has something in common with the ancient Chinese drama: actors wore masks and dramatic faces with d

10、iverse colors and designs as symbols of character. In Sichuan drama, the dramatic faces are more mysterious and interesting.,Aeschylus (埃斯库罗斯, 525-456 B.C.),Plays: Prometheus Bound (被缚的普罗米修斯), Persians (波斯人) and Agamemnon (阿伽门农) They are written all in verse. He is good at portraying vivid character

11、s with his majestic poetry, though the fate of death for those tragic people was inescapable. He used two actors and a chorus in his plays. Percy Bysshe Shelley, an English Romantic poet, even wrote Prometheus Unbound to praise the sacrificing spirit of Prometheus who stole fire from heaven for the

12、good of the human race.,Sophocles (索福克勒斯, 496-406 B.C.),Plays: Oedipus the King (俄狄浦斯王), Electra (伊莱克特拉) and Antigone (安提戈涅) He is noted for his tragic writing. He made some improvement in his plays: a third actor appeared and the size of chorus was much smaller. He used three actors and decreased t

13、he size and the function of the chorus. He made the drama develop in the direction of performing rather than narrating by the chorus.,The story: When Oedipus was born, his parents learned from an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother when he grew up. So the baby Oedipus was aband

14、oned on a hillside by a shepherd, but he was picked up, rescued by another shepherd from another country. He was raised as the son by the king of Corinth. When he grew up he learned of the oracle. In order to avoid such fate, Oedipus left his country. On the way to a neighboring country, he came acr

15、oss an arrogant and irritable man. In a quarrel, Oedipus killed him. When he reached the neighboring country Thebes, he solved the problem of the city by ridding it of the Sphinx riddle. As a hero in the eyes of the people in Thebes, he, as promised, married Jocasta, the queen of the country, withou

16、t knowing that he married his mother. It is when the messenger from Corinth came that the truth was unveiled: the person he killed many years ago was his own father. Realizing what sin he had committed, Oedipus stabbed out his eyes and put himself in exile. Jocasta committed suicide. Oedipus the Kin

17、g influenced not only later tragedy writing but also literary criticism. With a very effective reading of and profound thinking about this play, Sigmund Freud (西格蒙德弗洛伊德, 1856-1939), the Austrian doctor and psychiatrist invented the term “Oedipus Complex” which became a useful tool in the hands of th

18、e psychoanalytic critics. Some people say that, in light of this theory, Shakespeares Hamlet and Cao Yus The Thunder Storm also have the Oedipus complex, which is questionable.,Euripides(欧里庇得斯, 484-406 B.C.),Plays: Andromache (安德洛玛刻安德洛玛刻：赫克托耳的忠实妻子), Medea（美狄亚and Trojan Women (特洛伊女人) In comparison wi

19、th Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides was less influential but more realistic, always concerned with conflicts, on account of which he was referred to as the first playwright of “problem plays”.,Comedy Comedy also developed quickly in the 5th century B.C. But it was less brilliant than tragedy. Aris

20、tophanes（阿里斯托芬, ca. 450-380 B.C.) The best comedy playwright who left 11 plays among which Frogs, Clouds, Wasps and Birds are worth seeing. He was bold enough to satirize even some of the famous people of his day, including Socrates and Euripides respectively in his Clouds and Frogs. He was often cr

21、iticized for his use of coarse language in his plays.,3. History A. Herodotus (希罗多德, 484-430 B.C.) He is famous for the writing of wars between the Greeks and the Persians, because he believed that “the great and wonderful deeds done by Greeks and Persians should not lack renown.” The remarkable fea

22、tures of his history writing: his application of anecdotes, digressions and lively dialogue, which were more interesting than accurate, quite like the style in Luo Guanzhongs The Legend of Three Kingdoms (三国演义) instead of Chen Shous The History of Three Kingdoms（三国志）. Though not very accurate, as th

23、e forerunner of history writing, he is thus often called “Father of History”,B. Thucydides （修西得底斯, ca. 460-404 B.C.) As a historian, he wrote more accurately and carefully with imagination and power, paying much attention to the causes and effects of every historical event. His historical writings f

24、ocus on the wars between Athens and Sparta and between Athens and Syracuse which was a Greek state located on the island of Sicily. He is called by Macaulay, a famous historian, “the greatest historian that ever lived”.,4. Philosophy,A. Pythagoras (毕达哥拉斯, ca. 580-500 B.C.) The founder of scientific

25、mathematics, who is one of the early philosophers boldly thought about the universe. In his eyes, only numbers spoke and all things in the world were numbers. He used numbers to understand the world and the universe. He put forward the following concepts: point, line, magnitude, surface, body and pr

26、oportion. He had his view on beauty, thinking the circle or a round object is the most beautiful thing. This idea influenced many writers and poets who made very good use of this theory in their literary creation.,B. Heracleitue (赫拉克利特, ca. 540-480 B.C.),He is remembered for his theory of fire, theo

27、ry of change and theory of harmony. To him, among the four elements, fire was the main element of the universe and the base of everything. He maintained that all things change and nothing are still. Even Marxist theory of change accords with the idea of Heracleitue. This best serves the theory of de

28、velopment. His theory of harmony allowed the mingling of opposites, which insists that harmony is achieved in the process of solving the strife and conflicts.,C. Democritus (德谟克利特, ca. 460-370 B.C.),He is one of the earliest philosophical materialists He was one the earliest advocators to focus on t

29、he speculation of the atomic structure of matter. Karl Marx made a very deep and systematic study of his materialist philosophy.,D. Socrates (苏格拉底, ca. 470-399 B.C.),He is often mentioned together with Plato and Aristotle. Socrates taught Plato. Plato taught Aristotle. They were all great masters in

30、 the field of philosophy. In terms of teaching methodology, it is Socrates who invented the teaching method of interrogative and interactive approach in the same manner as Confucius did when he taught his disciples. The story of Socrates is recorded by Plato in Dialogues (对话集). He is famous for his

31、dialectical method. When he was seventy, in 399 B. C., he was accused of harming the city and the young people by not believing in gods. Because of this, he was put to death. He made a very good speech on death, “The Apology of Socrates”, which is but a dream and returning home. According to him, de

32、ath is but a change and migration of the soul from this world to another.,dialectical method: It is a method of argument by questions and answers. To explain an idea, Socrates applied the way of talking with others and led them to express their own ideas on one question. When the speakers made mista

33、kes, Socrates would correct them and illustrate the reasons why they were wrong and illogical. In this way, he made his viewpoint clear.,E. Plato (柏拉图, ca. 428-348 B.C.),As the disciple of Socrates, he made his greatest contribution to the world in writing The Dialogues, a collection of Socrates lif

34、e and ideas, like the Analects in which Confucius teaching and his dialogues with his disciples were recorded. His philosophy is idealism. And these ideas were later even accepted and assimilated into Christian thought. To him, the idea is more real than a concrete thing. So in his eyes, He had his

35、concept of kingship: A king should be a philosopher. But he failed to coach a prince and turn him to such a person. He established an Academy, where he spent 41 years teaching his disciples philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and so on.,Idealism: To answer the question how man could obtain knowledge

36、in the complex and uncertain world, Plato made a reply that man obtained knowledge from a certain general “idea”. The order of things is as follows. Idea comes first, then the making of a concrete thing, then the recreation of the thing in the form of art. To him, the idea is more real than a concre

37、te thing. So in his eyes, poets or artists of any kind are twice or thrice removed from truth and cannot tell truth. And according to his understanding, poets who may harm the young and the republic should be driven out of the country.,He was Platos disciple, but he was more versatile in that he tau

38、ght and wrote about logic, ethics, politics, metaphysics, psychology, physics, zoology, poetry and rhetoric. Most of his ideas on the above-mentioned fields dominated the world culture for over a thousand years, so he is the “father of science or knowledge”. He studied at Platos Academy. Like his te

39、acher Plato who was tutor of a prince, he also had a similar chance. But he was more fortunate than his teacher because the prince of Macedon he tutored became the most powerful King, Alexander the Great in Europe. When he retired to Athens he founded his own school at Lyceum, where he dedicated him

40、self to teaching and research. His main works: Ethics ( moral philosophy)，Politics (the art of governing)，Poetics ( literary theory) and Rhetoric (the art of persuasion). The definition of tragedy he gives in Poetics,F. Aristotle (亚里士多德, 384-322 B.C.),Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that

41、 is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.,Differences Be

42、tween Aristotle and Plato,Aristotle believed that theory came from direct observation of nature, while Platos philosophy relied on subjective thinking. These are respectively the base of materialism and idealism. Aristotle held the idea that the concrete individual realities are made up of “form” (i

43、dea) and matter, while Plato thought that ideas were more real than the physical world. Hence the difference between materialism and idealism. Aristotle contended that happiness is the aim of life. But, to him, happiness means something that could be realized through a life of reason, goodness and c

44、ontemplation rather than the so-called happiness in a vulgar and low sense.,G. Other Schools of Thought: There were many schools of philosophers around Socrates time. They reflected the active thinking of the ancient Greeks, just like the different schools of philosophers in the Zhou Dynasty and the

45、 Spring and Autumn Period in ancient China.,a. The Sophists（诡辩学派） Representative: Protagoras (普罗塔哥拉) (around 500B.C.) Work: On the Gods (诸神论) He is regarded as one the early humanists with his famous doctrine of man being the measure of all things. b. The Cynics (犬儒派) Representative: Diogenes (戴奥真尼斯

46、, ca. 412-323 B. C.) The word “cynic” in Greek means “dog”. They were called Cynics because their leader Diogenes would like to live a dogs life.,Features: 1) they refused to follow the conventions; 2) they advocated self-sufficiency and extreme simplicity, which was later absorbed into Calvinism an

47、d Puritanism; 3) they advocated brotherhood among all human beings and animals, which was accepted by many progressive humanists and writers like Walt Whitman and other poets; 4) they defied the rich and power. c. The Sceptics（怀疑派） Representative: Pyrrhon（皮洛, ca. 360-272 B.C.) They were thus called

48、because they thought that some knowledge could not be attained, though some could be obtained. They had a doubtful eye on the established truth which has been accepted by others.,d. The Epicureans (享乐派) Representative: Epicurus（伊壁鸠鲁, ca. 341-270） Pleasure was the best thing in life. According to Epi

49、curus, it means a state without pain and great emotional change rather than sensual enjoyment in the usual sense. They thought that the practice of virtue could lead to pleasure. Like Democritus, Epicurus was a materialist who also believed that the world was made up of atoms. e. The Stoics（斯多葛学派） R

50、epresentative: Zeno（齐诺, ca. 335-263 B.C.） The aim of life is duty rather than pleasure in any sense. They advocated simplicity of life and asceticism and also advocated that man should face hardship and misfortune bravely. Zeno was a materialist, believing in the existence of the real world and natu

51、ral laws rather than chance, regarding virtue as the only good in life.,5. Science,Euclid（欧几里德, 330-275 B. C.） He was noted for his Elements (解析几何). He was called the father of geometry. Archimedes（阿基米德, 287-212 B. C.) He was a famous scientist not only in geometry, but also in arithmetic, mechanics

52、 and hydrostatics. He was remembered for discovering the loss of weight of a body equaling to the weight of the water displaced and his invention of some defensive machines. The famous illustration of his principle of the lever (杠杆定律) is what he said to the king: “Give me a place to stand, and I wil

53、l move the world.”,6. Art, Architecture, Sculpture and Pottery,Art Greek art is the witness of Greek civilization. It reflected the Greek civilization in many fields including science, literature, philosophy, mythology and whatever the Greek people admired and worshipped. Architecture Parthenon (巴特浓

54、神庙) (built in 438 B.C.) It was a temple 240 feet long and 110 feet wide, with many spectacular columns evenly spaced. the Acropolis at Athens（雅典卫城）(built in 5th century B.C.) It was built for the purpose of praising Athens and holding religious activities,Three styles of Greek architecture : The Dor

55、ic style (the masculine style): It was characterized by the qualities of being sturdy, powerful and severe-looking. It also showed a good sense of proportions and numbers. The Ionic style (the feminine style ): It was characterized by its grace and elegance. The Corinthian style: is best known for i

56、ts ornamental luxury. Sculpture The ancient Greek sculptures were all connected with gods or goddesses who were presented as lifeless figures. Sculpture developed quickly in the 5th century B.C. and began to show beauty and strength of the people or things sculptured.,Discus Thrower （铁饼运动员; 掷铁饼者） It

57、 was the work of Myron (米隆，date of birth unknown, but active 480-440 B. C.) The sculpture shows the sculptors skill in presenting the throwers beauty, strength and balance. It made of marble can clearly display even the muscles and ribs of the handsome young man. Venus de Milo （米洛的维纳斯） It was made o

58、f marble, 204 centimeters high, discovered in Milo in 1820, and now displayed in the Muse du Louvre in Paris. It was probably sculptured between 150 B.C. and 50 B.C. This statue with its broken arms displays the beautiful countenance, the symmetry of body, the beauty of figure, the grace and lovelin

59、ess of a female. It gradually became the symbol of love and beauty.,Laocoon (“the Laocoon and his sons”) It was about 184 centimeters high, sculptured in the 1st century B. C., unearthed in Rome in 1506, and was the work of three sculptors, namely Agesandros (阿格桑德罗斯), his son Polydoros（波利多罗斯）and Athanodoros （阿塔诺多罗斯）. Laocoon, a priest of Apollo in Troy, died from serpents bites because he was not believed when he warned the Trojans of the danger of pulling the wooden horse left b