The 77 Greatest Works of Greek Literature
This selection of literature from Greece is based on the continuing research carried out for The Greatest Literature of All Time list and is additionally informed by the views of local readers, writers, critics and scholars.
It encompasses the greatest works of Greek authors in all forms, genres, cultures and periods.
An unusual feature of this list though is that it spans two widely differentiated historical and cultural epochs—those of ancient and modern Greece. Even the two geographical areas referred to by the word "Greece" are much different. What we call the ancient Greek world comprised a wide swath of eastern Mediterranean civilization, including regions we no longer consider part of the country known as Greece. Nonetheless there is enough continuity between the peoples of old and new Greece to make a common listing of greatest works worthwhile.
This list focuses on major creative works—such as novels, novellas, plays and collections—although some short or nonfiction writing of literary significance may also be included.
Latest update: July 23, 2023
c.750 BCE
Iliad
Epic poem
Many notable literary figures have acclaimed the Iliad as a transporting work of art. I don't entirely get it. Even after having read several different translations of the epic poem. I suspect any.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Translations • Buy
The Odyssey
Epic poem
This one has it all. The Odyssey is not only a great romantic, adventure epic, but it's terribly realistic in its depiction of human nature and a brilliantly crafted narrative. Authors today could learn from.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy
c.700 BCE
Theogony
Poem
The greatest thing about Hesiod's Theogony is that it's short. It was important to the ancient world for other reasons as well, but this does not translate into a particularly rich experience for modern readers. Unless they're.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
Works and Days
Poem
Works and Days is so different from Theogony that many scholars think it couldn't have been composed by the same author. Which sounds like welcome news for anyone who yawned through Theogony and now faces the.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
c.610–580 BCE
Sappho's Poems
by Sappho, Greece
Poetry collection, also known as Fragments of Sappho
c.600-550 BCE
Aesop's Fables
by Aesop, Greece
Story collection, also known as Fables, includes "The Fox and the Grapes", "The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs", "The Tortoise and the Hare", and others.
520–440 BCE
Epinician Odes
by Pindar, Greece
Poetry collection
c.504–501 BCE
Fragments
by Heraclitus, Greece
Poetry collection
c.475 BCE
Olympian
by Pindar, Greece
Poetry collection
472 BCE
The Persianse
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play
467 BCE
Seven Against Thebes
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play
c.462 BCE
The Suppliant Maidens
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play, also known as The Suppliants
458 BCE
The Oresteia
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play trilogy includes Agamemnon, The Eumenides, and The Libation Bearers.
c.450–425 BCE
Prometheus Bound
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play
The Women of Trachis
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
442–441 BCE
Antigone
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
It's the concluding instalment of Sophocles's so-called Theban trilogy about the tragedy of Oedipus and its ramifications. But Antigone was actually the first written and produced—more than a decade before the supposed.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
Ajax
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
438 BCE
Alcestis
by Euripides, Greece
Play
431 BCE
Medea
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.430 BCE
Children of Heracles
by Euripides, Greece
Play
Oedipus Rex
by Sophocles, Greece
Play, also known as
Oedipus,
Oedipus Tyrannus, or
Oedipus the King
For a modern reader, the ancient drama of Oedipus Rex can be startlingly accessible. There is little of the struggle through the language that one experiences with even more recent plays, such as Shakespeare's.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
c.428 BCE
Andromache
by Euripides, Greece
Play
Hippolytus
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.427 BCE
Hecuba
by Euripides, Greece
Play
425 BCE
The Acharnians
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
424 BCE
The Knights
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
423 BCE
The Clouds
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
The Suppliants
by Euripides, Greece
Play, also known as The Suppliant Women
422 BCE
The Wasps
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
c.420–410 BCE
Electra
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
418 BCE
Electra
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.416 BCE
Herakles
by Euripides, Greece
Play, also known as Heracles Mad
415 BCE
The Trojan Women
by Euripides, Greece
Play
414 BCE
The Birdse
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
414–412 BCE
Ion
by Euripides, Greece
Play
412 BCE
Helen
by Euripides, Greece
Play
411 BCE
Lysistrata
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
Women at the Thesmophoria
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
409 BCE
Philoctetes
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
406 BCE
Bacchae
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.405 BCE
Cyclops
by Euripides, Greece
Play
405 BCE
The Frogs
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
401 BCE
Oedipus at Colonus
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
c.385–370 BCE
The Symposium
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue
c.380 BCE
The Republic
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue, also known as
Plato's Republic
It is hard to know how to classify the philosophical classic The Republic, or any writing by Plato, as literature. Or to know even whether it is a literary work. It's published writing, so it is literature in the broadest sense. But.... Critique • Quotes •
Text • Buy
Meno
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue
c.0370 BCE
Cyropaedia
by Xenophon, Greece
Biography
Anabasis
by Xenophon, Greece
History, also known as The March of the Ten Thousand
317–316 BCE
Dyskolos
by Menander, Greece
Play
c.270–240 BCE
Aetia
by Callimachus, Greece
Poem
c.270 BCE
Epigrams
by Asclepiades of Samos, Greece
Poetry collection
Idylls
by Theocritus, Greece
Poetry collection
c.250 BCE
Voyage of the Argonauts
by Apollonius of Rhodes, Greece
Epic poem
c.50
Callirhoe
by Chariton, Greece
Novel
c.100
Parallel Lives
by Plutarch, Greece
Biography collection, also known as Plutarch's Lives or The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
c.150
Daphnis and Chloe
by Longus, Greece
Novel
c.500
Hero and Leander
by Musaeus Grammaticus, Greece
Poem
c.800
Digenes Akritas
Anonymous, Greece
Epic poem
c.1600
Erotokritos
by Vikentios Kornaros, Greece
Poem
1866
The Papess Joanne
by Emmanuel Roidis, Greece
Novel
1935
Poems
by Constantine Cavafy, Greece
Poetry collection
Mythistorema
by George Seferis, Greece
Poetry collection
1938
The Odyssey, a Modern Sequel
by Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece
Epic poem
1946
Zorba the Greek
by Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece
Novel
1955
The Last Temptation of Christ
by Nikos Kazantzákis, Greece
Novel
1959
To Axion Esti
by Odysseas Elytis, Greece
Poem
1962
The Third Wedding
by Costas Taktsis, Greece
Novel
1967
Z
by Vassilis Vassilikos, Greece
Novel
1970
Fool's Gold
by Maro Douka, Greece
Novel
1989
The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha
by Rhea Galanaki, Greece
Novel
1990
The Daughter
by Pavlos Matesis, Greece
Novel
1991
Astradeni
by Eugenia Fakinou, Greece
Novel
1992
Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture
by Apostolos Doxiadis, Greece
Novel
1995
The Late-Night News
by Petros Markaris, Greece
Novel, also known as Deadline in Athens
2009
Z213: Exit
by Dimitris Lyacos, Greece
Novella
2013
God Is My Witness
by Makis Tsitas, Greece
Novel
2014
Victory
by Christos Chomenidis, Greece
Novel
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