A Critical Appraisal Of Beowulf And Gilgamesh

A Critical Appraisal Of: Beowulf And Gilgamesh Essay, Research Paper A Critical Appraisal of: Beowulf and Gilgamesh There are many differences and critical comparisons that can be drawn between the epics of Beowulf and Gilgamesh. Both are historical poems which shape their respected culture and both have major social, cultural, and political impacts on the development of western civilization literature and writing. Before any analysis is made, it is vital that some kind of a foundation be established so that a further, in-depth exploration of the complex nature of both narratives can be accomplished. The epic of Gilgamesh is an important Middle Eastern literary work, written in cuneiform on 12 clay tablets about 2000 BC. This heroic poem is named for its hero, Gilgamesh, a

tyrannical Babylonian king who ruled the city of Uruk, known in the Bible as Erech (now Warka, Iraq). According to the myth, the gods respond to the prayers of the oppressed citizenry of Uruk and send a wild, brutish man, Enkidu, to challenge Gilgamesh to a wrestling match. When the contest ends with neither as a clear victor, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. They journey together and share many adventures. Accounts of their heroism and bravery in slaying dangerous beasts spread to many lands. When the two travelers return to Uruk, Ishtar (guardian deity of the city) proclaims her love for the heroic Gilgamesh. When he rejects her, she sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy the city. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the bull, and, as punishment for his participation, the gods

doom Enkidu to die. After Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh seeks out the wise man Utnapishtim to learn the secret of immortality. The sage recounts to Gilgamesh a story of a great flood (the details of which are so remarkably similar to later biblical accounts of the flood that scholars have taken great interest in this story). After much hesitation, Utnapishtim reveals to Gilgamesh that a plant bestowing eternal youth is in the sea. Gilgamesh dives into the water and finds the plant but later loses it to a serpent and, disconsolate, returns to Uruk to end his days. This saga was widely studied and translated in ancient times. Biblical writers appear to have modeled their account of the friendship of David and Jonathan on the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Numerous Greek

writers also incorporated elements found in the Gilgamesh epic into their dragon-slaying epics and into stories concerning the close bond between Achilles and Patroclus. Gilgamesh is definitely the best known of all ancient Mesopotamian heroes. Numerous tales in the Akkadian language have been told about Gilgamesh, and the whole collection has been described as an odyssey?the odyssey of a king who did not want to die. This is one of the major differences between the heroic characters. Beowulf, in order to achieve immortality through the tales of his bards, must perish in battle to accomplish this task. A similarity between both characters is their desire to obtain immortality. They both have different techniques in trying to reach their ultimate destination, although both share

the unique qualities of being flawless, strong, and heroic to the end. The fullest extant text of the Gilgamesh epic is on twelve incomplete Akkadian- language tablets found at Nineveh in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (reigned 668-627 BC). The gaps that occur in the tablets have been partly filled by various fragments found elsewhere in Mesopotamia and Anatolia. In addi tion, five short poems in the Sumerian language are known from tablets that were written during the first half of the 2nd millennium BC; the poems have been entitled “Gilgamesh and Huwawa,” “Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven,” “Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish,” “Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Nether World,” and “The Death of Gilgamesh.” The Gilgamesh of the poems and of the epic tablets