Think you’ve identified several very interesting ways of looking at the question. The Greek point is an excellent one. Considering how Homer and Herodotus invented their respective literary traditions, not to mention the philosophy and plays, it’s hard to look past them as originating the entire Western cultural tradition.
Think you’ve identified several very interesting ways of looking at the question. The Greek point is an excellent one. Considering how Homer and Herodotus invented their respective literary traditions, not to mention the philosophy and plays, it’s hard to look past them as originating the entire Western cultural tradition.
But then as you say, those of other great literary traditions, the Chinese or Indians, have founders of their own. Hard to say how much we’re blinkered by our particular cultural inheritance.
Think you’ve identified several very interesting ways of looking at the question. The Greek point is an excellent one. Considering how Homer and Herodotus invented their respective literary traditions, not to mention the philosophy and plays, it’s hard to look past them as originating the entire Western cultural tradition.
But then as you say, those of other great literary traditions, the Chinese or Indians, have founders of their own. Hard to say how much we’re blinkered by our particular cultural inheritance.