The manners of the sea

The sea is a fertile literary subject connected to human civilization since its infancy and has accompanied humanity since the dawn of life. The sea has been a rich field for mythical literary interpretations in maritime literature, from Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, and what the first epic contained of depicting the struggle between its hero Odysseus and the sea god Nereus, and the mythical scenes of the sea, to the second epic of a naval storm faced by Aeneas’s fleet in the sea until the fall of Palinurus into the sea as a sacrifice for the Trojan fleet, to the tales of Sinbad the sailor and the popular maritime stories of One Thousand and One Nights, which included tales of mermaids, sea jinn, and mythical portrayals of the world of the sea. All of these have influenced maritime literature throughout history, combining myth, realism, and romance, aiming to discover, interpret, and exploit the marine nature for the benefit of humanity and to open new horizons for it. By maritime literature, I mean that literature which aims to express the world of the sea, with the sea being its main influential subject in events, characters, and the overall vision of the literary work. Book: Maritime Literature Author: Ahmed Mohamed Atiya Original edition: 1981