The Epic of Gilgamesh

..so what is an epic?  A long narrative poem about a hero and his companions  It is set in the “ideal” past, a past imagined as greater than the present  The hero often has superhuman divine traits  The style is elevated to the greatness of the deeds  The poem is oral

The epic is divided into 2 species  The primary epic is a stately narrative about nobility and recited to nobility.  It is spoken by a bard who speaks impersonally as the voice of the community  The Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf

..(cont)  The poet of the secondary epic has more individuality  Virgil’s Aeneid  Milton’s Paradise Lost  Ed.Barnet, Berman, Burto, “The Dictionary of Literary Terms. Boston: Little Brown and company, 1960

Elements of an Epic ( you will need to know this for the rest of your life)  Journey of a hero  Battles/monsters  Blazon  Pageantry  Oratory/rhetoric  cataloging  Honor/loyalty  Destiny  Assembly scenes  Perseverance  Common sense  Tragic waste  Repetition  Symbolism  Long involved sentences  Parallelisms  Hyperbole  Litotes  Sung by bards to illiterates  Heroic leaders on both sides

An epic simile  An extended comparison  A subject is compared to something that is presented in such detail that the subject is sometimes lost

Background  Gilgamesh was written on 12 or so tablets hundreds of years before found  Gilgamesh would have been known in 2000 bce.  Found in the Hittite imperial capital at Boghazkoy in Anatolia, written in Semetic Akkadain  Sumerians were the first literate inhabitants of Mesopotamia  Gilgamesh influenced Rome/Europe  The Sumerians did not unify the material into one single narrative  The epic was lost and rediscovered in 1839 by 2 Englishmen in Ninevah, the once capital of ancient Assyrian empire  First published in 2 volumes in by Paul Haupt

Do we have all the poems?  5 poems relating to Gilgamesh survived  Of these 2 are used and are combined with later material in this version of the epic

…but wait there’s more  It’s an adventure story  2 men want fame and fun  Alone, but armed, 2 friends will take on the scary forest and its guardian in a not-so-ordinary world  Good vs evil  Friends  Not so happy ending like fairy tales

gods and all their complications  Anu father of gods  Ishtar goddess of love and war(should sound familiar)  Ea goddess of wisdpm  Enlil god of storm and wind  Shamash, kindly, just sungod  Utu Sumerian underworld  Kur mountain and foreign land

Why is the Gilgamesh so important?  …because it dates back to 2000 bce.  It is older than the Bible and the Homeric Epics by at least a millennium and a half

Facts  5 poems relate to the historical ruler of Ur: Gilgamesh  A King Gilgamesh lived and reigned in the first half of 3000 bce  Gilgamesh is 5 th in line from the first dynasty of Uruk (after the great flood)  He reigned 126 years (his son probably reigned 30 years)  First tragic hero in oral tradition

Sumerians  First literate inhabitants of Mesopotamia  They were wealthy so their land was tempting to the wild Semitic tribes of Arabia  Conquerors from the North and East arrived around 4000bce  They were equal in influence on their neighbors as Rome was to Europe

Fiction: Gilgamesh the king  Hero 2 parts god one part man  His mother was a goddess, but an obscure one  Father: lillu, a fool or demon of vampire kind  He is superior to all men  No one compares to him in love or war  We meet him in his mature manhood when he is wearing out his subjects so they pray to the gods for help

Enkidu  He is the foil to Gilgamesh: the natural man  He loses his innocence  He never looks back…until his deathbed  He is taken to Uruk..the city..and is lost in it

Episodes  1.Meeting of friends  2.Forest journey  3.Flouting of fickle goddess  4.Death of companion  5.Search of ancestral wisdom and or immortality

Main Message? How Can I live my life when Enkindo, who I loved dearer than anyone, is now dust. Is that all there is? Will I be dust as well? How should I feel about all this?