Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Heroic Life

Abstract

A commentary on the nature of the heroic life as described in the Gilgamesh Epic, studying each of the heroes and their relationship both to each other and to the contiguous worlds of animal and god, for the purpose of forming an idea of the range and kind of possibilities open to man according to the epic. Some of man's defining limits, as seen by the Sumerians and, more particularly, their successors, are thus suggested. The poem is considered a literary unit, characterized generally by a preoccupation with the idea of human fear of, and revolt against, death, and an attendant emphasis on purely mortal glory.