ENG 283E: Our Premodern Epics: How Epics Create Culture and Vice Versa

The Epic of Gilgamesh:

The animated youtube series of The Epic of Gilgamesh that I have chosen to use for my scalar project provides the readers of The Epic of Gilgamesh to have a visual animation of the epic. This Youtube animated series provides a total of 11 parts. This can help fellow students learn more about the Epic because it highlights main parts of the long written epic into a short, easy to understand, animated series. The written epic of Gilgamesh and the Youtube animated series of Gilgamesh relates to each other significantly. Where the written version of the Epic of Gilgamesh highlights each and every single little detail of the epic, the youtube series only highlights the main important parts of the epic. This youtube series is very significant to the plot of the Epic because it emphasizes the main events in the epic. One of the important events that the animation highlights is the creation of Enkidu which was created by Aruru to match the overruling king, Gilgamesh. In a series of unpredictable events, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become best friends which is also another main event that the animated series highlights. Another important event that the animated series shows is the dreams that Enkidu has throughout the epic which foreshadows upcoming events in the epic. This animated version of The Epic of Gilgamesh gives readers and followers a visual point of view of the epic. This animation series means a lot to me because for people that are more visual learners, this series can help them understand the epic a whole lot better. 

The most essential turning point in this epic was the creation of Enkidu. Enkidu was created to face the overruling king of Uruk. After Enkidu was created, he copulated with a prostitute for six days and seven nights which transitions him from being a wilderness animal to a normal human being. Enkidu finally hears of the overuling king o Uruk and wishes to meet him. When they meet, a great fight breaks out between them. Instead of one killing the other, a crazy change of events happen and they become best of friends. Quoting from the epic itself, Enkidu tells Gilgamesh, "Do not go down into the forest; when I opened the gate my hand lost its strength.' Gilgamesh answered him, ‘Dear friend, do not speak like a coward...keep beside me and your weakness will pass, the trembling will leave your hand. Would my friend rather stay behind? No, we will, go down together into the heart of the forest...When two go together each will protect himself and shield his companion, and if they fall they leave an enduring name." Shows the friendship that they have for each other. Another point of view written by a female describes how this heroic friendship isn't so heroic after all, "Avci devotes particular attention to a reconsideration of heroic masculinity. While emphasizing male bonding, she also makes use of René Girard's concept of mimetic rivalry to demean the male friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu by attributing supplementary homosexual overtones to the epic" saying how Gilgamesh and Enkidu's friendship is not masculine and does not fit into the epic of being heroes and rulers.

My map location displays Mesopotamia which is the location of the Epic of Gilgamesh, this relates to both my source and the epic because it is where the epic took place dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (circa 2100 BC). 

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