Reading Sumerian Poetry

Reading Sumerian Poetry
ISBN-10
0801435986
ISBN-13
9780801435980
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
205
Language
English
Published
1998
Publisher
Cornell University Press
Author
Jeremy A. Black

Description

An authority on ancient Mesopotamian culture, Jeremy Black here provides an introduction to the world's oldest poetry. Sumer, in southern Iraq, was the first literate civilization, with writing dating back as far as 3100 B.C. Its extensive poetic literature was lost for nearly two millennia; rediscovery and decipherment of the ancient writings began in the nineteenth century. Black is fully aware of the difficulties of applying modern literary methods to the study of ancient literature, emphasizing theoretical problems that arise from contemporary expectations of a unitary text. Looking closely at the imagery in the Lugalbanda poems, Black perceives in them a rich and sophisticated poetic imagination and technique, which, far from being in any sense "primitive," are so complex as to resist modern literary analysis.

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