Greek Poetry
You know who this is. Lyric poet. Wrote more than 10,000 lines. From a wealthy family on the island of Lesbos. Maybe some kind of educator or “finishing school” teacher. Counted among the “Nine Lyric Poets” of later Hellenistic Alexandria.
Works: “Ode to Aphrodite”--her only surviving complete work. Most poetry only survives in fragments. Mostly wrote love poetry, but also wrote about family and religion. Her poetry was originally written to be sung.
Who is Sappho
Which ancient Greek playwright is often called the 'Father of Tragedy' and is famous for adding a second actor to the stage?
Who is Aeschylus
Which Roman poet wrote the Aeneid, the national epic of ancient Rome telling the story of the Trojan prince Aeneas?
Who is Virgil
Roman comic playwright. Earliest Roman playwright to have any plays survive in their entirety.
Who is Plautus
Which ancient Greek epic poet is traditionally credited as the author of both the Iliad and the Odyssey?
Who is Homer
Which surviving work by Aeschylus holds the distinction of being the only complete trilogy of ancient Greek tragedies that has survived into modern times?
Who is Oresteia
Which Silver Age Roman poet composed sixteen Satires featuring bitter, indignant critiques of Roman moral decay, giving rise to the phrase 'bread and circuses' (panem et circenses)?
Who is Juvenal
Only wrote six comedies based on earlier Greek plays. All six plays survive completely.
Who is Terence
Hailing from the island of Lesbos, which lyric poet was celebrated in antiquity for her romantic verse and was dubbed the 'Tenth Muse' by Plato?
Who is Sappho
c. 480-c. 406 BC. Greek tragedian–the third one. Said to have written 90-95 plays, of which 18-19 have survived more or less intact (the most of the three!). Focused more on the inner lives of his characters, making him more emotionally affecting. Also more sympathetic to his female characters, or at least more complex about them.
Medea, Electra
Who is Euripides
Which Roman poet introduced the Hendecasyllabic meter= and the Sapphic strophe into Latin lyric poetry to express his intense personal emotion toward Lesbia?
Who is Catullus
Which play, traditionally attributed to Seneca but likely written shortly after his death, stands as the only surviving complete fabula praetexta from antiquity?
What is Octavia
c. 518-c. 438 BC. A lyric poet from Thebes. NOT a playwright. Didn’t create any new genres of poetry, but did innovate in existing forms. Sometimes considered to be the first poet to reflect on the nature of poetry itself and the role of the poet as creator.
Who is Pindar
The FATHER of Tragedy. Playwright. Out of his 70-90 plays, 7 survive.
The Persians
The Suppliants
Prometheus Bound
Who is Aeschylus
Which of Horace's works popularized the philosophical concept of carpe diem within a poem composed in the Asclepiad meter?
What is Odes
Which stock character type in Roman comedy—epitomized by Pyrgopolynices in Plautus's Miles Gloriosus—directly influenced the Capitano figure in Commedia dell'arte?
Miles Gloriosus
Which archaic poet wrote Works and Days and provided one of the earliest systematic accounts of Greek mythic genealogy in the Theogony?
Who is Hesiod
Which of the three great Athenian tragedians is famous for introducing a third actor onto the stage, significantly expanding character interaction and dialogue dynamic?
Who is Sophocles
Which Roman elegist created the poetic persona of 'Cynthia' and explicitly rejected epic war poetry in favor of militia amoris (the warfare of love)?
Who is Propertius
Which Silver Age Roman playwright wrote dark, rhetorical tragedies intended primarily for recitation rather than full theatrical performance, heavily influencing Renaissance revenge tragedy?
Who is Seneca the Younger