The book is the third and concluding part of the investigation on Submerged literature in
ancient Greece and beyond.The book expands the inquiry to a comparative perspective in order
to test the validity and usefulness of the hermeneutical approach in other fields and cultures.
The comparative case studies deal with gnostic text Qumran texts the Hebrew Bible Early
Christianity Cuneiform Texts Arabic-Islamic literature ancient Rome Medieval China and
contemporary southern Italy. The volume tackles themes and questions relating to author and
authorship cultural translation and transmission the interaction between orality and literacy
myth and folktale. A particular emphasis is given to anthropological themes and methods. In
this vein the book further explores dynamics of emergence and submersion in ancient Greece
including cultural trends promoted respectively by Sparta and Athens.The volume provides the
reader with a wide range of tools and methodological suggestions to reconstruct literary
phenomena and cultural processes in a given historical epoch and context as well as offering
new insights for both classical and comparative studies.
