chapter1.希腊文化课后习题答案.pdfVIP

Chapter 1. Culture in Ancient Greece Reference Answers to the Questions 1. Give a brief account of the major achievements of Greek culture, such as those in religion, philosophy, literature and science. Greek religion really took shape during the Homeric Age and featured polytheism with gods takin human form and feeling. Greek religion made a great contribution to Greek literature, philosophy and art. It is an important origin of Greek mythology which was fully developed by the religious tales of the Homeric epic and thus affected the later development of all kinds of Greek culture. Greek philosophy started with Thales (640 BC –547 BC) who believed that the material world originated in water. His philosophy was materialism. He was followed by Pythagoras who assumed that the key to the understandin of the world is numbers, on the opposition of the spokesman for idealism. The core Greek philosophers are Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Socrates had scant regard for material wealth, but was keen on probing into the definition of some ethical and behavioral issues, such as “friendship” and “courage”. Plato established the Academy － the first Greek institution of higher learning. His contributions included his theory of ideas and his arguments on “republic” whi ch was supposed to embrace his ideals about a future state where humans could enjoy a happy life. Aristotle is also a learned man and his work covers wide-rangin areas. His reputation as a philosopher largely depends on his argument on metaphysics which he tried to achieve a compromise between ma er and divinity. Literary representation centred round the two epic poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey, lyrical poetry by Sappho and Pindar and drama by Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes. Their works combined Greek myths and social life and won much appreciation and enthusia