1st Edition
Ethics and Literary Worldmaking Imaginative Discourse in Oral and Early Scribal Cultures
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Oral and Scribal Discourse and Genres in Non-Axial Societies
Part I: Dialogism and Dissonance in Oral and Indigenous Imaginative Discourse
Chapter One: Moral Sociality and Ethical Deliberation in Mythic Storytelling
Chapter Two: Diversely Organized Societies and Heterogeneous Discursive Interventions Chapter Three: Extended Narratives of Mythic-Heroic World Creation
Part II: Signifying Agency and Justifying Power in Mesopotamian Literature
Chapter Four: Literary History’s Beginnings and Mesopotamian Cultures’ Longue Durée
Chapter Five: Innovation, Conservation, and Foreboding in Akkadian Literary Biculturalism
Chapter Six: Ethics and Worldmaking in the Reconfiguring of Gilgamesh Narratives
Conclusion: The End of a Beginning
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Donald R. Wehrs is Hargis Professor of English Literature Emeritus at Auburn University, USA. He is author of four monographs, most recently Ethical Sense and Literary Significance (2024), and editor or co-editor of six collections, including The Productivity of Negative Emotions in Postcolonial Literature (2025).
