Study On The Social Role Of Ancient Greek Poets

"Poetry" in ancient Greek is actually a general term for all literary forms of rhyming.Epic poem,lyric and drama all belong to "poetry".Thus,the ancient Greek poets can be roughly divided into epic poets,lyric poets and drama poets."Poetry" was a potential tool of public opinion,by which ancient Greek poets praised the greatness of gods,people and city-states,admired the democratic politics of city-states and educated the Greek people by “poetry”.Poets played a vital social role in the history of ancient Greece and exerted social influence that could not be ignored.The research object of the paper is the social group of ancient Greek poets.Taking some typical ancient Greek poets as examples,the paper analyzes the social roles of ancient Greek poets in four periods from the Homeric age to the Hellenistic age by combining the realistic background and poetic theme of each era.The paper consists of four chapters.The first chapter analyzes the social role of the epic poets in Homeric age with Homer and Hesiod as the representatives of poets.Homer was the Greek educator who educated the whole of Greece.Homer's epics the Iliad and the Odyssey contained a wide range of contents,comparable to the encyclopedia,and were important materials for educating citizen of ancient Greece.Hesiod was an interpreter of Greek theology,and he was also the first civilian poet in ancient Greece.In the Theogony,Hesiod systematically combed the ancient Greek mythology and the genealogy of gods,laying the foundation for the dominance of the Olympian religion in Greece.The second chapter analyzes the social role of lyric poets in Archaic period,mainly by the outstanding poets such as Solon,Sappho,Pindar and Tyrtaeus.In Archaic period,the Greek world emerged a large number of lyric poet,they praised the greatness of gods,the victory of sports competitors,the democracy and prosperity of polis,and also guided the thought and the way of life,such as the democratic politics by Solon,the maiden life education by Sappho,the civism by Tyrtaeus.It can be said that the lyric poets of ancient Greece played the social role of eulogists and leaders.Chapter three explores the social role of the dramatic poets in classical age.In classical age,drama flourished in Athens and there were plenty of outstanding drama poets.Aeschylus,Sophocles and Euripides were the most famous tragic poets,and they educated the citizens of polis by the tragedy and respectively carried out patriotic education,religious ethics education and city-state education to the citizens of Athens.Aristophanes was the most outstanding comedy poets in ancient Greece.He praised the Athens and opposed the unjust war to defend the democracy of Athens,thus,he played the social role of the defender of the democracy.The fourth chapter analyzes the changes of the social roles of the poets in the later stages of the Classical period and the Hellenistic period,especially the new comic poets.After the Peloponnesian war,the political consciousness of the middle-comedy poets gradually weakened with the emergence of the city-state crisis.During the Hellenistic period,Athens had lost its place as a cultural center,and the city-state was already no longer what it used to be.The new comic poets represented by Menander detached from the social reality and focused on family life and love between men and women.The new comic poets were committed to bringing the audience a pleasant experience of watching the drama.The social role of the drama poets has been changed.On the basis of existing ancient Greek poetry,the paper analyzes the social role of ancient Greek poets from Homeric age to Hellenistic age in order to understand the status and social impact of poets,and in a further way to research on the society and culture of ancient Greece.