literature as I remember it (I'm probably getting this all wrong)

The first written piece of literature that has been found was Beowulf. That was written in about 350 b.c. in Europe. Before that, stories were memorised and passed down from generation to generation through song. Back when Beowulf was written down everything was done by scribes. It was very expensive to have a piece of written literature as everything had to be written by hand on dried sheep skin (known back than as parchment). The writing was done by monks and usually only those of noble blood owned books because of the cost. After Beowulf the next big piece of leterature was the Torah (sp?) wich was written in 200 b.c. Of corse, many don't consider that literature as it is scripture, but I count it. The enxt major piece was the bible, followed by the king Arthur stories wich were written in the dark ages.1

That is the beginning of literature, at least it is as I remember it from my British literature class in college. I could be completly wrong though, I don't rememebr the class very well...