Epic of Gilgamesh (summary)

Epic of Gilgamesh

    Epic of Gilgamesh Gilgamesh was an historicalking of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he livedabout 2700 B.C. Although historians (and your textbook) tend to emphasizeHammurabi and his code of law, the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates area, amongthe first civilizations, focus rather on Gilgamesh and the legends accruingaround him to explain, as it were, themselves. Many stories and myths werewritten about Gilgamesh, some of which were written down about 2000 B.C. in theSumerian language on clay tablets which still survive; the Sumerian language,as far as we know, bears no relation to any other human language we know about.These Sumerian Gilgamesh stories were integrated into a longer poem, versionsof which survive not only in Akkadian (the Semitic language, related to Hebrew,spoken by the Babylonians) but also on tablets written in Hurrian and Hittite(an Indo-European language, a family of languages which includes Greek andEnglish, spoken in Asia Minor). All the abovelanguages were written in the script known as cuneiform, which means"wedge-shaped." The fullest surviving version, from which the summaryhere is taken, is derived from twelve stone tablets, in the Akkadian language,found in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria 669-633B.C., at Nineveh.The library was destroyed by the Persians in 612 B.C., and all the tablets aredamaged. The tablets actually name an author, which is extremely rare in theancient world, for this particular version of the story: Shin-eqi-unninni. Youare being introduced here to the oldest known human author we can name by name!This summary is derived from several sources: translations, commentaries, andacademic scholarship on the Shin-eqi-unninni tablets. Verses are derived from severalEnglish and French translations in consultation with the English and Germanlanguage commentaries and with the Babylonian text. For the entire text, youshould turn to The Epic of Gilgamesh , trans. by Maureen Gallery Kovacs(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), or Gilgamesh , translated by JohnMaier and John Gardner (New York: Vintage, 1981) As you read this shortsummary, ask yourself the following questions: 

1. Themes. The first things youwant to sort out are the ideas which seem to animate the work. One of theproblems with literature, art, mythology, etc., is that you can never be quitesure that you've correctly identified the central ideas or philosophy of thework, but you should take a stab at it anyway. Keep in mind that there is no suchthing as one and only one idea in a work of literature, and that in most artand literature, like life, there is no one correct answer concerning any singleissue. To identify an idea, question, or theme that the work seems to treat,look for specific places where that idea seems to be a concern; mark thesepassages and combine and contrast them when you begin to try to resolve whatthe work seems to be about. The questions I provide in these reading notes aremeant to organize the families of questions you can bring to these texts. 

2.Structure. Try to define for yourself the overall structure of the story. Thisnarrative has two distinct parts; what are these parts and how are theyseparated? How do events in the second part of the narrative repeat or developideas in the first part of the narrative? Do these events contrast with ordevelop themes and values articulated in the first part of the narrative? 

3.The Nature of the Heroic. When you read the myth, notice how Gilgamesh ispresented as superhuman, so powerful that the gods create a counterpart tomoderate his desires and actions. Do you get the sense that Gilgamesh andEnkidu should have spared the demon of the cedar forest? Despite all ofGilgamesh's power, he is unable to prevent Enkidu's death, and the narrativechanges direction. How can one describe Gilgamesh as a hero in the last half ofthe work? What has he achieved at the end of the poem? Why is this important? 

4. The Gods. The gods in Gilgamesh are a bit problematic. How do the gods behave?What is their relation to humans? How much freedom do humans have, or are theymerely subject to the will of these gods?

 6. The Flood. The story of the Floodis a familiar one, as we shall see in Genesis and Popol Vuh (Plato also givesan account of the Flood and the city of Atlantis in the dialogue, Critias ; theNez Perce of the Palouse also have a flood story in which the only humans thatsurvived did so by climbing the mountain, Yamustus, that is, Steptoe Butte).The earliest surviving reference to the Flood goes back to 1900 B.C. Why is itbrought in here? Why do the gods bring on the Flood? Is any reason given?(Later compare the reasons for the floods in Genesis and Popol Vuh.) What doesit tell us about the nature of history and the relation of the gods tohumanity?