1. Ancient Greek Literature - Epic Heroes, Loss, and Mortalty
The earliest Gilgamesh stories seem to come from Sumerian texts which most likely reflect the crystallization of earlier epic traditions, and was probably one of the most well-known and influential poems available (West 65). The stories concerning Gilgamesh in Sumerian are short and episodic and present no unifying theme, but in the Akkadian versions it appears that the poet has unified these traditional stories into one larger eleven or twelve tablet epic with more unified themes (West 65, Noegel 240). ... Gilgamesh is described as two-thirds god and one-third human, which marks him out as a ...
- Word Count: 4256
- Approx Pages: 17
- Has Bibliography
- Grade Level: Undergraduate