Having asserted that the Assyrians adopted the Babylonian literature as their own, it must be explained that while the above statements apply to written literature generally, the word literary in the title of this book is used in a much more restricted sense. Accurate definition is extremely difficult, since ancient civilizations obviously produced written material to satisfy their own needs and objectives, and these do not necessarily answer neatly to the categories of modern literary criticism or folkloristics. Moreover, in many cases the circumstances in or for which a given work was composed are not known. The term "belles lettres" may be suggestive, but a definition must be by exclusion: compositions exemplifying and expressing a creative effort, but not including functional genres such as rituals, incantations, or royal inscriptions, which follow a fixed tradition and format, nor the day to day religious literature.
Alasdair Livingstone
Alasdair Livingstone, 'What is Meant by Literature in this Volume', Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, SAA 3. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1989; online contents: SAAo/SAA03 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa03/CulturalandHistoricalBackground/WhatisMeantbyLiterature/]