A Creative Writing of the Epic of Gilgamesh (The Return)

A Creative Writing of the Epic of Gilgamesh (The Return)

Part 1

A city is a human latent in its symbolic nature and is the ability for inordinate good and unlimited evils. A city is cemented with gold or dissolute with sin. Cities can act as a representation of a specific type of heaven or hell on earth, eventualevolution, or the opposite, ideal and dystopia. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Uruk is the embodiment of evil and good. It is a representation of good, strength, achievements, and invincibility in its sturdy walls and yet corruption has managed to penetrate through. The stud place has changed into a prison full of evil and dominated by decadence. At the starting section, the leader is depicted as an over-civilized, bored, corrupt, and enticing youths to run riot. This creates a modern dilemma from the opening of this tale. Similarly, we can equate this to the stories in the Bible where Solomon and Gomorrah are houses of evil. The old myth seems to give us a reflection of a city as a place where there is human vanity, where most of them pronouncing the mythic balances openly. In the first section of Gilgamesh, gods are coerced to create a man of nature, Enkidu, to counter the power of the corrupted evil. The modern city, for instance, LA in “Hotel California” by the Eagles, is perceived to be a den of corruption.

On the other hand, as an ideal of the achievements of human beings, the bright city provides contrary to dark wood. The political situations of a city as a place of virtue existed during the time of the ancient Greeks. Rome is still perceived as a significant achievement. At the same time, Constantinople has seen a replica of everything that satisfied human beings in the modern world, due to its riches in art, culture, and architecture. In Gilgamesh, the issue of the high wall, old and still standing, offers a contrast with the transient lives of its ancient creators, the Seven Sages and mostly its renewer, the hero Gilgamesh..

The anchor of this change, from the frantic adventure of Gilgamesh to staunch immobility of the wall, shows a succession of four clauses that relate to his homecoming. This is deliberately positioned at the center of five four-line stanzas of the poem.  The confirmation that the return of Gilgamesh comes with a change from motion to rest originates from two sources. One is founded at the end of the poem.

In literary forms, the change brought by the homecoming of Gilgamesh and the richness exhibited by the materials and variety of the city is appealing. For instance, cities have their sources in nature, of course, like being along the rivers, having harbors, or being worship centers, with their positive side having a mythic source of virtue attached to change brought about by Gilgamesh. The city offers amodel effect of a mother figure, providing sustenance to the children in the home. The epic hero should have found a city, whereas the mythic hero should save it, maybe from himself.

Part 2

I chose this section “The Return” section for transformation because the prologue is based on the experiences of the central poems, character, and his life of pain and hardship. The life which was brought to a heroic end but created a compensation of undefeated wisdom. Life is regenerated as a new city with modern features. The poet rejoins the reader to climb over Uruk’s wall and admire its structures and antiquity. The final point of focus is not the wall, but the city, in lines which tell us about their presence, their topic and their resolve with a stark dissonance, by leaving verse for prose. This is no lapse since this similar passage of prose is repeated at the end of the poem in its final stanza. There is no doubt that as the device for framing the poem in entirety, this section has carries the whole intention of the poet, and choosing prose as its only genre was a strategy to attract the reader’s attention to that issue.

The formal feature of the two elements used in this transformation is their ability to create a new insight. The two aspects arise from considering the legal structure of the prologue and the issue of philology. The first few lines delivered the epic that Gilgamesh was best known for in the most straightforward possible style. He went on long journeys to the end of the world looking for immortality and came back exhausted, without any object of his quest but filled with words of wisdom from primordial time.

The transformation of this poem has rendered its conclusion unsatisfactory and even weak. The poem is supposed to be a “heroic epic” but culminates in a mismatch between the reputation of the poem and its intended impact.  The transformation of this poem brings a contrast between how its narrative handed the deaths of its two main protagonists. Enkidu was so crucial in the development of the plot, while Gilgamesh is presented as a structural device acting like the words “The End.” The section of the poem transformed forms a doublet with the prologue. The prologue and epilogue are the only book-ends of the poem that match, with carefully structured vital parts giving a better reason to seek the urgent and essential message of the poem.

The possibility of success of transforming this particular text into this form may be generally dissatisfying not because of a lack of composition techniques but due to the failure of literary-critical analysis. The text translated mainly concentrates on how Gilgamesh finally reconciled with his mortal destiny. Since the prologue represents this knowledge, the end of the poem does not repeat it but is made up of a third, more elaborate exclamation “Climb Uruk’s Wall.” These give a refocus of his attention. Thus his preoccupation with his individual crisis paves the way to an impersonal topic, where there is no self-reference. Therefore, to understand and succeed in reading the transformed text, a reader should carry out a sensitive reading of the text, usually known as honest seeking. A reader should be aware of the literary theory but not be controlled by its tyranny.

Reference

Rohrer, T. P. (2017). The Epic of Gilgamesh.