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Haubold ( J. ) Greece and Mesopotamia. Dialogues in Literature . Pp. xii + 222, ill. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2013. Cased, £55, US$95. ISBN: 978-1-107-01076-5 .
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The book is based on a set of three W.B. Stanford Memorial Lectures delivered at Trinity College, Dublin in 2008. Each lecture has become a chapter of 50-55 pages, and they are book-ended by an introduction and an epilogue. H. juxtaposes Greek and Mesopotamian texts from different periods, from the Archaic age to the Seleucid, with the aim of showing that the two peoples are looking from different viewpoints in similar directions, not without interaction.
The first chapter focuses on GilgÄmes, Enuma elis, Homer and Hesiod. H. does not dispute that the Greek poetic tradition underwent significant influence from the Babylonian. But he is less interested in hunting for sources and parallels than in interpreting the poems as expressions of a shared approach to problems of the human condition. 'Epic ... portrays intertextual relationships not as a matter of borrowing across distinct cultural domains but as a convergence around a set of universal concerns' (p. 51). 'Mesopotamian and Greek epic alike invites us to think hard about...