STUDENTS OF TlHE LATE E. A. SPEis]3R often speak of his feeling for literaure, which he disseminated in his teaching perhaps even more than in his publications. It is fitting, then, that this paper, composed in his memory, should be concerned with style. The term 'literary style' must be qualified for ancient Mesopotamia, since the cumbrous writing system restricted literacy to a highly trained corps of professional scribes, and any 'literary' composition would inevitably be comprehended with the ears, rather than the eyes, by most who made its acquaintance. Indeed, there is every reason to assume that 'literature' began entirely orally, and that when writing was invented and texts were written down the oral aspects of it continued exactly as before. We are in no position to be more specific, but a mention of this presumption is called for. The first literary texts from Mesopotamia are Sumerian and date from the middle of the Third Millennium, from the sites of Fara and Tell Salabih mainly.' Too little of them is understood to permit any study of style, but they are the earliest witnesses to a development in Sumerian which was not finally exhausted until about 1,000 B. C. The development of Akkadian literature may well have been stimulated by the Old Akkadian dynasty (c. 2,300-2,200 B. C.), which made use of Semitic in royal inscriptions and generally seems to have provoked a cultural ferment. However, too little from this period remains in the way of Akkadian literature, and the next blossoming of culture, under the Third Dynasty of Ur, was, perhaps as a reaction, distinctly Sumerian. The break-up of this dynasty under the immigrating Amorites c. 2,000 B. C. was the time when Akkadian literature really began to develop, and three basic influences on its style can be traced. The first was the every-day language, Babylonian, known to us from many letters. The syntax of this dialect was largely Sumerian, with the verb at the end of its clause or sentence. But its Semitic connexions are unknown, since it differs widely from Old Akkadian, but shows no real Amorite influence. The second influence is the formal Sumerian style. The phraseology of royal inscriptions, to take the clearest example, was largely traditional and had been Sumerian in the first place. It remained Sumerian during the Isin-Larsa period, but starting with Hammurabi the inscriptions were generally issued in both Sumerian and Babylonian versions, which normally correspond almost word for word. In this way Akkadian absorbed Sumerian syntax, phraseology, and nuances. The same happened in other spheres. Much Sumerian religious language passed over into Akkadian in quite literal renderings. The third influence on style in the development of Akkadian literature was that of Old Akkadian. What had been ordinary language in that dialect was employed as high falutin by Old Babylonian literati. This applied particularly to vocabulary and to certain endings, especially the locative -umn and the ' adverbial ' -s, which were no longer current in the Old Akkadian uses. Whether Old Babylonian poetic line patterns were taken over from the Old Akkadian period cannot yet be ascertained for lack of evidence. It does seem that behind the Old Babylonian poetic scene there is the influence of a Semitic poetry, like that from Ras Shamra, employing a short line. Both the Sumerian and the Old Akkadian influences helped to remove literary productions away from everyday speech, but hymns show these influences much more than epics. As the Second Millennium passed the impact of all three sources of influence on style lessened. The development of academic learning resulted in a rejection of ordinary language forms as a suitable medium for literature. Old Akkadian had given what it could, and it could give nothing more. Sumerian was still a living tradition in the sense that texts were being composed in it, but it was increasingly under the influence of literary Akkadian. Thus the development of literary style in the second half of the Second Millen1 See M. Civil and R. D. Biggs, RA 60 1-16.