Gilgamesh and Beowulf

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Gilgamesh and Beowulf

• Epic Heroes

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Map of Mesopotamia (Gilgamesh is 3,700 years old)
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Modern Iraq (for now)
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Gilgamesh Tablet

• In 1872, George Smith was working at
  the British Museum. On a long table were pieces
  of clay tablets, among the hundreds of thousands
  that archaeologists had shipped back to London
  from Nineveh, in present-day Iraq,. Many of the
  fragments bore cuneiform hieroglyphs. Smith was a
  self-taught linguist and never went to high
  school. He was the first to read the story in
  over 2,000 years.
• Keep in mind the difficulty there must have been
  (still is) in trying to figure out exactly how
  the story went and what it could mean.

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(No Transcript)
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Gilgamesh slaying the bull of heaven
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Shamash the Sun god
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Humbaba
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The Hero Myth Leaving home to come home
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The Hero Myth (rough) outline

• Gilgamesh leaves home with helper, Enkidu, to
  begin adventure (Frodo and Sam?)
• Hero enters other world (woods)
• Gilgamesh must undergo testshe defeats the
  monster Humbaba, slays Bull of Heaven, etc.
• Lessons Gilgamesh goes off to learn the secret
  of immortality. The boon (prize) is the
  knowledge that immortality is for the gods only.
  Notice the motif of the evil serpent connected to
  knowledge humans shouldnt have
• The story, like many epics, have the hero come
  full circle (back home), but with a new
  outlook/knowledge about humanity. Notice how
  Gilgamesh is now the narrator at the end.

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(No Transcript)
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The Geography of Beowulf
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Anglo-Saxon England
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Key Dates

• 43 Roman invasions of Britain under Claudius
  begin
• 382 St. Jerome Latin version of the Bible
• 429 Germanus comes to Britain to convert
  people to Christianity
• 449 Germanic tribes called Angles, Saxons and
  Jutes by Bede (Ecclesiastical History of the
  English People ) invade Britain
• 594 Gregory of Tours writes of a Danish king
  Hygelac. This is the only dated event in
  Beowulf that can be attested from an
  independent source

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• 780 Vikings attack England (first Viking age)
• 871 Alfred the Great reigns after winning
  victory over Danish leader Guthrum. One of their
  agreed treaty points
• We earnestly forbid every heathen practice.
  It is heathen practice if one worships idols
  namely, if one worships heathen gods and the sun
  or the moon, fire or surges of water, wells or
  stones or any kind of forest trees or if one
  practices witchcraft, or causes death by any
  means, either by sacrifice or divination, or
  takes part in delusions of this sort.
• 980-1066 Second Viking age
• 1000 Compilation of Beowulf (redaction like
  Bible)
• 1066 William the Conqueror is crowned William I,
  King of England. This Norman Invasion changed
  England from a Scandinavian influence to French

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Sutton Hoo

• Sutton Hoo is an estate near Woodbridge,
  Suffolk, England, that is the site of an early
  grave of an Anglo-Saxon king (compare with lines
  34-45 in Beowulf)

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• In the burial site there were 41 items of
  solid gold, now held in the British Museum. The
  ship also contained 37 coins, a helmet, a
  necklace and a shield mount, all of gold.

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9th century Viking ship
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Type of Neck ring given to Beowulf by Wealhtheow
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The Danes

• The Danes were residents of Denmark
• The Scylding line is known through Scandinavian
  and Anglo-Saxon sources the Anglo-Saxon king
  Cnut (1016-1042, a period coincident with the
  composition of the Beowulf manuscript) is known
  to have descended from this line.

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The Geats

• The Geats were Beowulf's clan - a seafaring tribe
  residing in the south of Sweden. As the poem
  suggests, the Geats appear to have been conquered
  and disappeared into history.