Introduction. Mythology and literature of antiquity

LECTURE 1. INTRODUCTION. MYTHOLOGY AND
LITERATURE OF ANTIQUITY
Plan:
1. Definition of literature.
2. Modern concept of the World Literature.
3. General types of literature.
4. The role of mythology in the history of world literature.
5. Literature of the Antiquity: Epic, Lyric, Drama and Prose.
6. Literature of Rome.


Key words and phrases: world literature, Weltliteratur, globalisation, cosmopolitanism, comparative literature, Goethe, selective canon, myth, history, Greek myths, Roman myths, Homer, Virgil, Sappho, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Plato, Catullus.

1. 
   Definition of Literature
   

Brother Azurin defined literature as an expression of people’s feelings toward the society, government, surroundings, fellowmen and Divine Creator. The expression of one’s feeling may be through love, sorrow, happiness, hatred, anger, pity, contempt, or revenge.
According to Webster, literature is anything that is printed, as long as it is related to the ideas and feelings of people whether it is true or just a product of one’s imagination.
Atienza, Naval, Ramos, and Salazar said that literature is a piece of written work which is undying. It expresses the feelings and emotions of man. In response to his everyday effort to live, to be happy in his environment and after struggles, to reach his Creator.
Literature is derived from the Latin word literatum meaning writing that is characteristically written in noble language depicting deep emotion, passion, and inspires thinking. It is:

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  Characterized by timeless sense of endurance;
  
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  Universal because it transcends race and climate, goes beyond a particular locality;
  
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  Oral in tradition passed on from one generation to another by word of mouth;
  
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  A reflection of the human condition and mirrors the experience we observe every day in our life;
  
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  Placed side by side with some major disciplines like Physics, Medicine, etc.;
  
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  Like a mirror walking on the road of life.
  

Though the term “world literature” has been around for some two centuries now, and though reflection on the meaning and reach of the term has never really stopped within the field of comparative literature, it is only with the recent turn toward globalization, cosmopolitanism, and transnationalism that it has become one of the focal points for reflection within all of literary studies. Scholars around the world are now exploring world literature as a phenomenon and are debating its uses and limitations as a subject of study. These ongoing debates have major implications for the study of individual national literatures as well as for broader regional configurations, and they affect our understanding of earlier periods as well as the literature of our globalizing present. Translation studies, literary theory, postcolonial and area studies, and comparative literature as a whole are all subject to rethinking and reframing in light of these debates.
Ambiguities and uncertainties have attended the conception of world literature from its early formation in the heyday of European nationalism to its current global reformulation. The first person to give “Weltliteratur” general currency, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, never really defined the term, which he used in quite varied ways in his voluminous writings. His viewpoint oscillated between an essentially European focus and a much more global perspective, and he was ambivalent as well about the social and aesthetic implications of the literary commerce of his day. Goethe championed Weltliteratur as entailing the intimate commerce or exchange of ideas between like-minded writers around Europe, and yet on the other hand, he saw that the worldly circulation of literature was bound up with a transformation that he viewed far less favorably, the ever-increasing commercialization of popular literature and the spread of mass culture.