Gilamesh critique
Gilgamesh is known as the first great heroic narrative of world literature. Scholars have found that the origins of Gilgamesh were written on tablets throughout the Middle East and in cuneiform. The history of the text is far from being fully understood, but it is believed that this work was written between 2500-1500 B.C. The earliest written version of the text date roughly 2000 B.C., but the history of the epic itself begins sometime before 1600 B.C. This critique will center on the Akkadian version of the work that appears in the Norton Anthology of World Literature (Second Edition, Volume A). Gilgamesh developed over a period of a thousand years. The version known as the Standard version was discovered in the city of Nineveh amid the ruins of the great royal library of the last great king of the Assyrian empire. Therefore Gilgamesh is considered as the oldest epic. But is it really an epic? An epic is a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero. Gilgamesh is more of a myth than it is an epic. Myths, so far as their origins are concerned, are like dreams, spontaneous expressions of the unconscious. But one may ask who the dreamer is? In this case, i
t is the collective ego of the people, that is, the commonly held beliefs and attitudes - the collective consciousness. The context available would be the culture of the time in which Gilgamesh arose and was valued. The definition also states that there is a hero involved. The author's choice to categorize Gilgamesh as a hero serves as a means of further illustrating the misuse of the term epic. Overall, the author aims to create a piece of work that is considered to be an epic - considerably one of the greatest. persons, origins, early history, and those of whom they consider to be a hero are connected with it. All of which is a story with something or someone having no existence. To try and make a piece of literary work something that it is not makes the author appear not sufficiently expert. In this case, the author is doing nothing but trying to make a myth an epic; which is not worth doing so. The story of Gilgamesh was meant to have a certain effect on its readers. It had depictions of the bonds of friendship, a search for worldly renown, and the attempt to gain immortality. All of these ideas seem to be goals of those during the time of the development of the story of Gilgamesh. Since Gilgamesh is more of a myth, it seems as though the author would realize that trying to make it an epic is not worth doing. Doing so not only discredits the author, but it also takes away from the effect that the story is suppose to have on its readers. Since the story of Gilgamesh appears to be more of a
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Approximate Word count = 1017
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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