This book deals with the birth and formation of the 'idea of literature, ' and with its evolution from Antiquity to the Baroque. It is the first part of a vaster project, a 'history' or 'biography' of the idea of literature from ancient times to the present. It covers two millenniums of the 'history' of the idea of literature, the genres, development, structure and articulation of which have never been studied in sufficient detail, a situation, one might add, oftentimes deplored.