Floriza Batiancila BSN3-2 *What is the nature and importance of world civilizations and literature?

Literature is an enduring expression of significant varied human experiences. It deals with ideas, thoughts, and emotions. It instills the culture of a group such as the values, morals, etc. It also reflects peoples common history, shared experiences, and sense of their civilization achievements. Literature promotes awareness, conveys ideas, and mobilizes people to a course of action. I t is also a source of pleasure and relaxation. It stimulates imagination, creative thinking, and creative writing. The history of a nations literature is a part of general history of a nation. In the writings of the nation, we may see what the changing civilization of that nation did to the thinking, hoping, and dreaming of people. And not only may we learn how people thought, in the writings, of a Tacitus, or a fielding, but we may see how they lived from day to day.

Source: transworld civilizations and literature by Leemark Banaag pg. 8 *Definitions of terms -civilization: comes from latin word civitas meaning city, a resembling city, that may be taken as a permanent settlement of people having organized way of life through its established social institution. -society: a geographical territory wherein people interact and share a culture. -Culture: way of life -Social institution: an established system of social norms revolving around the needs of people. -Transcultural nursing: study and practice of nursing directed towards providing culturally appropriate care in considerations of various values, beliefs and practices of individuals or groups within the cultural context.

*Types of civilizations and literature

*Historical background

*Relationship of civilization and literature

*What are the first civilizations? The first civilizations began in cities, which were larger, more populated and more complex in their political, economic, and social structure than Neolithic villages. Because the cities depended on the inhabitants of adjacent villages for their food, farming techniques must have been developed sufficiently to produce food surpluses. Those people found settlements along rivers because rivers that deposit minerals to the soil make it a fertile ground for cultivation and as a source of fresh drinkable water as well as, irrigation. Increased production provided food for urban inhabitants who engaged in nonagricultural occupations: they became merchants, craftsmen, bureaucrats, and priest.

World civilizations Global; experience 4th edition Authors: peter N. Stearns, Stuart B. Schwartz, Michael adas, Marc Jason Gilbert

*pre history

*civilization in Asia,

*civilization in Africa

*civilization in America

*Civilization in Mesopotamia

The earliest civilizations in the world flourished in the quarter moon shaped region called the fertile crescent. A section of this region known as Mesopotamia is the area where the first civilization in the world was raised by its fertile land between two rivers, referred to as cradle of civilizations The name Mesopotamia is derived from greek words meso translated to middle and potamos translated to river. Thus Mesopotamia is the land between the rivers of Euphrates and Tigris in what is now contemporary Iraq. The Sumerians were the first civilized people as recorded in the writing of history from clay tablets. They recorded the civilization of Sumer through a system called cuneiform. The need to learn cuneiform writing opened the first school in the world. The development of this system of writing produced the worlds first literary works notably the epic of Gilgamesh. The fist people of the civilized world were polytheistic who believed and worship many Gods,. The displease gods were believed to cause human illness, sufferings and chaos. They held a pessimistic belief about afterlife being trapped in a miserably dark underworld. The city of Sumer was later conquered by King Sargon of Akkad who established the first empire in the world. The Akkadian Empire. The 'gateway to the gods' - which rose to glorious prominence under the Amorite king Hammurabi, who unified Babylonia between 1800 and 1750 BC. While Babylonian power would rise and fall over the ensuing centuries, it retained its importance as a cultural, religious and political centre until its fall to Cyrus the Great of Persia in 539 BC." Source: Transworld civilizations and literature by Leemark Banaag pg.