Background

NOT Greek or Roman: Mesopotamian; cuneiform tablet

Layard 1839 ¶ Library of Assurbanipal 1853 ¶ Assyria: Nineveh (destroyed 612 B.C.) - George Smith ¶ 1872 Society of Brit. Arch. ¶ "A short time back I discovered among the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum an account of the flood."

Standard Babylonian Version: ca. 1500-1100 B.C. (Assyrian version is, essentially, a copy of this, in translation) - compiler is priest by name of "Sîn"

Older texts: Old Sumerian version, ca. 2100 B.C. ¶ Old Babylonian Version: ca. 1600 B.C. ¶ Akkadian, Hittite, etc.

Cf. Iliad/Odyssey ca. 750 B.C. ¶ Aeneid 19 B.C.

Characteristics which are ancient, epic

length? - verse

language - tone, epithets, use of repetition

repetition as mantra: ritual, magic

topics - heroes, gods, heroic journey

something essentially different from a collection of heroic "lays" - a sequence of tales that is not merely celebratory, but in some sense explores deeper issues relating to the hero

Three episodes and what they tell about the nature of the hero, about the meaning of the epic

• Civilizing of Enkidu
• isolation of the hero
• liminality of the hero's position: boundary conditions
• nature - culture divide
• what does woman seem to symbolize, how does she function? the power of sex- positive or negative?
• the encounter between G. and E.: is E. civilized, or G. decivilized?
• why do the heroes go to the cedar forest? what do the heroes seek in conducting this heroic journey? what is odd about the heroic journey? is it really glorious? how does the "glorious" killing go? how does G. react to the killing?
  
  

• Gilgamesh's refusal of Ishtar, and the death of Enkidu
• Refusal of the gifts of the goddess (TVN's assertion that the gods are not interested may be a problem here)
• destabilizing force of sex: but an inherent ambiguity, is there not, for the construction of society: a societal construction threatened by the "new paradigm" of G. and E.
• Why must Enkidu die?
• "know thyself", "nothing in excess"
  
  
  
• Gilgamesh's search for immortality
• What answers are given to the repeated exchange, "why are your cheeks and why is your face so drawn? etc." (Siduri 101, Urshanabi 103, Utnapishtim 105)

Liminality: hero as someone who transcends (and explores) boundaries such as

nature / culture

mortality / immortality

Characteristics of the epic hero

"agonism": able to overcome impossible or nearly impossible tests

the "other": different from "normal" humans, neither entirely human nor entirely god; unlike anyone we've ever personally known

a "liminal" figure: able to transcend the critical boundaries that inform and delimit man's universe, thus to explore the nature of those boundaries

"objectification" of the inner: there is something about the explorations of the hero that seems to strike deep chords within our psyche, something mysteriously familiar; s.th. about a heroic journey that immediately does bring to mind "life's journey", which in turn prompts us to read the journey in symbolic terms

[Van Nortwick article

"Second self" as objectification of inner (masculine) problems; G.s journeys a passage to emotional maturity

Fully and frankly subjective reading of the poem, looking there for an exploration of questions such as "how can we live at peace with what is, letting go of what we wish would be? how can we learn to accept death as a part of life? how exactly do we know when we are "grown-up"?

"The human illusion of culture as a way of denying the reality of death"

"Instead of G. becoming more 'wild' he launches an adventure that is driven by a more intense version of the same way of seeing the world that seems to have informed his behavior when he was overwhelming the city: everything he does presupposes the importance of marking the difference, in strength, determination, birthright, between the king and his subjects."

"There is certainly much to be learned here about the interrelations between maturity, humility, and acceptance -- lessons, indeed, that seem to contradict some of the common connotations of the word 'heroic'."]

Images

Cuneiform clay tablet. Text from the eleventh tablet (the Flood) of the Epic of Gilgamesh, illustrating the condition of the text even after many pieces have been rejoined. In the British Museum.

Clay mask of Humbaba. (?) Appears as a fearsome, protective demon. (Perhaps the prototype of the Gorgon head in archaic Greek art.) University of Penn. Museum.

Slaying of Humbaba. (?) Impression of a Neo-Assyrian period cylinder seal, belonging to Dr. Leonard Gorelick.

Nude hero (Gilgamesh?) subduing a bull. Impression of a late 3rd millenium B.C. cylinder seal.

Maps

Mediterranean Basin (East)

Mesopotamia

Essay

Essay on Gilgamesh, by Arthur A. Brown (Note: this is not a sign that I agree with Brown on every, or even many, points-- only an essay that seems to have some interesting or illustrative points)