Comparing Beowulf and Gilgamesh :: comparison compare contrast essays

A Comparison of Beowulf and Gilgamesh There are numerous 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(ip) social, cultural, and political impacts on the development of western civilization literature and writing. to begin with any analysis is made, it is vital that some kind of a base of operations be established so that a further, in-depth exploration of the complex record of both narratives can be accomplished. The epic of Gilgamesh is an important Middle east literary work, written in cuneiform on 12 clay tablets ab divulge 2000 BC. This heroic poem is named for its hero, Gilgamesh, a tyrannical Babylonian top executive who ruled the city of Uruk, known in the Bible as Erech (now Warka, Iraq). consort to the myth, the gods respond to the prayers of the oppressed citizenry of Uruk and send a wild, brutish man, Enkidu, to tak e exception Gilgamesh to a wrestling match. When the contest ends with neither as a pass along victor, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. They journey together and share many adventures. Accounts of their valour and bravery in slaying dangerous beasts spread to many lands. When the 2 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 Enkidus death, Gilgamesh seeks out the wise man Utnapishtim to learn the secret of immortality. The sage recounts to Gilgamesh a narrative of a outstanding flood (the details of which are so outstandingly 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 unre mitting 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. scriptural writers appear to have modeled their account of the friendship of David and