Over the last sixty years scholars have increasingly become aware of links connecting early Greek poetry with the literatures of the ancient Near East. Martin West's new book far surpasses previous studies in comprehensiveness, demonstrating these links with massive and detailed documentation and showing 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 an illuminating discussion of possible avenues of transmission between the orient and Greece.

""His superb, unique scholarship can be read with ease and profit even by undergraduates.""

""[West] has performed an extremely valuable service in making the specialist scholarship of Mesopotamian and other Eastern literatures more readily accessible than has previously been the case.""

Martin West FBA was formerly Professor of Greek, University of London (1974-91)