SomeEventsandIdeasintheHistoryofAuthorshipintheWest.docVIP

Some Events and Ideas in the History ofAuthorship in the West Compiled and maintained by Rebecca Moore Howard.? Send suggestions to rmoorehoward AT gmail DOT com This site is licensed under a? HYPERLINK /licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.? Princess Enheduanna of Akkad in Babylonia (2300 BCE), first named author, writes songs honoring Inanna, goddess of love and war; signs her clay tablets (Manguel). The?Odyssey?of Homer (9th-8th century BCE?) depicts the power of the individual singer: The herald came near, bringing with him the excellent singerwhom the Muse had loved greatly, and gave him both good and evil.She reft him of his eyes, but she gave him the sweet singingart. Pontonoos set a silver-studded chair out for himin the middle of the feasters, propping it against a tall column,and the herald hung the clear lyre on a peg placed overhis head, and showed him how to reach up with his hands and take itdown, and set beside him a table and a fine basket,and beside him a cup to drink whenever his spirit desired it.They put forth their hands to the good things that lay ready before them.But when they had put away their desire for eating and drinking,the Muse stirred the singer to sing the famous actionsof men on that venture, whose fame goes up into the wide heaven. . . . . (VIII, 62-74; Lattimore translation) Aristotle (384-322 BCE),?Poetics?1448b: Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation 38-103?CE Roman poet Martial extends the meaning of?plagiario, the Latin word for kidnapper of slaves, to include textual appropriation. 1100s?Bernard of Chartres, who was master of the episcopal school at Chartres from 1114-1119, who died in 1126, and whose works are lost to us except in John of Salisburys accounts, is the first authenticated appearance in writing of th