...In ancient times, the epithet was a commonly used byname in both the oral and written traditions. The epithet was a descriptive name, not unlike a modern nickname, and was used extensively in epic poetry. The most famous use of the epithet was those used in the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. The use of epithets was used as well in a much earlier Mesopotamian poem known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Homeric Poems and the Poem of Gilgamesh the two stories share stock epithets and epic similes. The paper will first discuss epithets in the Homeric poems, then discuss the epithets in the Epic of Gilgamesh in comparison. Homeric Epithets Places The epithet, as previously mentioned, was essentially a byname. It saw its full use in the Homeric Epic which is why this paper chooses to discuss the Homeric poems first. While it was defiantly used to describe individuals such as Gods and certain characters, it was also used to describe certain places as well. Homeric scholar Bowra discussed this in her analysis: “Homeric...
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...INTRODUCTION THE OLDEST STORY IN THE WORLD In Iraq, when the dust blows, stopping men and tanks, it brings with it memories of an ancient world, much older than Islam or Christianity. Western civilization originated from that place between the Tigris and the Euphrates, where Hammurabi created his legal code and where Gilgamesh was written -- the oldest story in the world, a thousand years older than the Iliad or the Bible. Its hero was a historical king who reigned in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk in about 2750 BCE. In the epic, he has an intimate friend, Enkidu, a naked wild man who has been civilized through the erotic arts of a temple priestess. With him Gilgamesh battles monsters, and when Enkidu dies, he is inconsolable. He sets out on a desperate journey to find the one man who can tell him how to escape death. Part of the fascination of Gilgamesh is that, like any great work of literature, it has much to tell us about ourselves. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death, perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it, in portraying love and vulnerability and the quest for wisdom, it has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages. But it also has a particular relevance in today's world, with its polarized fundamentalisms, each side fervently believing in its own righteousness, each on a crusade, or jihad, against what it perceives as an evil enemy. The hero of this epic is an antihero, a superman (a superpower, one...
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