Roman literature as the forerunner of world literature

Abstract

At the beginning the author briefly sets forth the roots of Roman literature and the bases on which it founded its creativity. In continuation he designates it as the history of productively educating and transforming the literary genres adopted from Greek literature. Because even though it cannot be conceived without the Greek substratum this literature is nevertheless not a mere copy of Greek literature. Its specific attraction consists in the fact that the fabric of Greek literature, through the integration of authentically Roman material, spawns a new and specific artefact for which there is no equivalent in Greek literature. Ultimately, the author states the reason why it is precisely Roman literature which is the real forerunner of both today's civilisation and contemporary world literature. This is the reason why neither the Chinese nor the Japanese, neither the Indian nor the Muslim world - the author intentionally mentions these huge population conglomerates - cannot resist the irresistible powers of logic or of information or the attractions of a Homer or of Carmina Burana which were formerly composed and sung throughout the German-speaking Holy Roman Empire by clerici vagantes - the joyful scholars. Neither can the forementioned peoples nor any other civilised region in today's world resist the pull of the said cultural phenomena which sprang up in antique, today - by way of precisely Roman - world literature.