Publisher's Synopsis
Ever since Neolithic times Greek lands lay open to cultural imports from Western Asia: agriculture, metal-working, writing, religious institutions, artistic fashions, musical instruments, and much more. Over the last 60 years scholars have increasingly become aware of links connecting early Greek poetry with the literatures of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Canaan, and Israel. Martin West comprehensively demonstrates these links with much detailed documentation, showing that they are much more fundamental and pervasive than has hitherto been acknowledged. His survey embraces Hesiod, the Homeric epics, the lyric poets, and Aeschylus, and concludes with a discussion of possible avenues of transmission between the Orient and Greece. He believes that an age has dawned in which Hellenists will no more be able to ignore Near Eastern literature than Latinists can ignore Greek.;This book is intended for scholars and students of the classical world and the ancient Near East.
