The Epic Of Gilgamesh as Translated by Andrew George Essay

The epos Of Gilgamesh as Translated by Andrew George - Essay Exampleace in the worlds literature, wrote Nancy Sandars (1972), not all because it precedes the Homeric epic by at least one and a half thousand years, unless also because of the quality and character of the story that they tell - a mixture of pure adventure, of morality, and of tragedy. (p. 7) According to Kenneth Rexroth (1986), the larger-than-life of Gilgamesh is a highly developed fictional narrative, stressing thatIt is not a myth. Even to call it an epic requires a stretching of the definition. It is more like a novel of modern, individualistic hero than it is like Homers Iliad. It is spiritual adventure, a story of self-realization, the discovery of meaning of the personality, of a type that would never change deplete the four-thousand-year-long history of human imagination It is modern because it is like a dream of a modern man. (1)This subject will examine this highly significant work and determine how it re flects the society in which it was created and in how it reveals the economic, political, cultural, sacred and social structures that defined the Mesopotamian society.There are several variations to the Epic of Gilgamesh particularly in the literature of the Hittite, Hurrian, Canaanite, Sumerian and Assyrian. One could even find a hint of Gilgameshs repute in the Islamic Koran. The more or less complete chronicle of the epic was found in Assurbanipals library, formed just before the ravaging of Nineveh in the seventh century B.C.The story is divided into several chapters or episodes a meeting of friends, and so the forest journey, the flouting of a fickle goddess, the death of Enkidu and the quest for an ancient wisdom and immortality. These episodes demonstrate a individual theme that reflects the permeation of pessimism in the Mesopotamian thought, which, according to Sandars, lay partly in the precariousness of life in the city-states. (p. 22) The city-states which are depen dent on the vagaries of flood and drought as well as turbulent neighbors then on