HISTORY OF LITERATURE


Mesopotamia: 3rd millennium BC

The earliest uses of writing are strictly practical - lists of commodities, temple accounts, details of a contract. Such documents are short and not too daunting to a Mesopotamian scribe, writing with a reed stylus on a tablet of damp clay. For centuries it seems unthinkable to write down an entire epic poem, familiar to these societies only in the form of recitation.

When writing is first developed, an oral poetic tradition is already a feature of civilized life. Eventually the scribes get round to the task of recording some of this material. Mesopotamia provides the world's two earliest surviving works of literature.

×

They are Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Both probably date back in their oral form to the middle of the third millennium BC. Both are known from fragments of clay tablets of the second millennium and from more complete texts in the library of Ashurbanipal.

Enuma Elish, a creation story of considerable complexity, is not very rewarding if read as literature. The Epic of Gilgamesh, by contrast, is a masterpiece - worthy of being spoken of in the same context as the Homeric poems. Homer is on a far grander scale, but is more than a millennium later.

×




Page 1 of 19   Next >

The cradle of writing
The eastern heritage

The western heritage

Greek drama

Greek history

Greek philosophy

Rome

Augustus and patronage

4th - 8th century

8th - 11th century

12th - 13th century

The Italian awakening

The path to Chaucer

Renaissance

Shakespeare

17th century

18th century

Late 18th century

18th - 19th century

To be completed





HISTORY OF LITERATURE

     
Mesopotamia: 3rd millennium BC

The earliest uses of writing are strictly practical - lists of commodities, temple accounts, details of a contract. Such documents are short and not too daunting to a Mesopotamian scribe, writing with a reed stylus on a tablet of damp clay. For centuries it seems unthinkable to write down an entire epic poem, familiar to these societies only in the form of recitation.

When writing is first developed, an oral poetic tradition is already a feature of civilized life. Eventually the scribes get round to the task of recording some of this material. Mesopotamia provides the world's two earliest surviving works of literature.

×

They are Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Both probably date back in their oral form to the middle of the third millennium BC. Both are known from fragments of clay tablets of the second millennium and from more complete texts in the library of Ashurbanipal.

Enuma Elish, a creation story of considerable complexity, is not very rewarding if read as literature. The Epic of Gilgamesh, by contrast, is a masterpiece - worthy of being spoken of in the same context as the Homeric poems. Homer is on a far grander scale, but is more than a millennium later.

×

> HISTORY OF LITERATURE


Mesopotamia: 3rd millennium BC

The earliest uses of writing are strictly practical - lists of commodities, temple accounts, details of a contract. Such documents are short and not too daunting to a Mesopotamian scribe, writing with a reed stylus on a tablet of damp clay. For centuries it seems unthinkable to write down an entire epic poem, familiar to these societies only in the form of recitation.

When writing is first developed, an oral poetic tradition is already a feature of civilized life. Eventually the scribes get round to the task of recording some of this material. Mesopotamia provides the world's two earliest surviving works of literature.

They are Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Both probably date back in their oral form to the middle of the third millennium BC. Both are known from fragments of clay tablets of the second millennium and from more complete texts in the library of Ashurbanipal.

Enuma Elish, a creation story of considerable complexity, is not very rewarding if read as literature. The Epic of Gilgamesh, by contrast, is a masterpiece - worthy of being spoken of in the same context as the Homeric poems. Homer is on a far grander scale, but is more than a millennium later.



Page 1 of 19   Next >



List of subjects |  Sources