{"product_id":"the-invention-of-literature-from-greek-intoxication-to-the-latin-book-9780801858642","title":"The Invention of Literature: From Greek Intoxication to the Latin Book","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Antiquity  which is claimed to have invented literature  philosophy  and history  humanism  human rights  and democracy  is called upon to vouch for us  the Europeans of today  in the face of the passing centuries  by demonstrating that our own civilization cannot possibly be mortal since it is civilization itself... But there is another  more disorienting way of using antiquity. The present work would like to suggest a rediscovery of the alienness of the ancients  for this would be a way of rediscovering ourselves in all our repressed diversity.\" -- from the Introduction. Writing  so often claimed as the necessary tool for social and individual progress  has another history. In classical Greece  writing was looked upon with suspicion  an attempt to subject the reader to the writers will. The spread of books and their exaltation announced the victory of conquerors. In antiquity  writing was not written for a literary public but for private ceremonies  trade  and secrecy. The invention of literature  writes Florence Dupont  is recent  and its classical ancestry is not firm. Rather than representing solely the remains of a network of readers and writers  the odes  epics  tales  and dramas of Greece and Rome had a much more diversified background and purpose. Some works were intended to be read in groups; other works were not meant to be read at all. The pleasures of reading -- a vital characteristic of literature -- were tied up in pleasures that were by no means private or intellectual. Resisting the traditional temptation to project current tastes and beliefs backward upon Greece and Rome  The Invention of Literature presents classical writings in all their differences. The labor of understanding a lyric or an epic as it was understood in its time requires a radical reconsideration of what reading is and what it means.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45951486328885,"sku":"ByrdShop_080185864X","price":337.17,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780801858642_68d001be-6e5e-4c9c-9132-e9a5ec13d6ef.jpg?v=1788109581","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-invention-of-literature-from-greek-intoxication-to-the-latin-book-9780801858642","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}