2.4 Epic Form

In the sections above, we have explored the formal techniques by which visual art composes its images and designs. Well, what of literary form?

You may be surprised to hear that ancient literature almost always begins in verse. Derived from oral traditions, it uses repetitive rhythms to aid bards in memorizing long texts and in maintaining the interest of an audience. Gilgamesh is composed in verse.

Of course, this verse is pretty different from modern ideas of poetry. And since we are dependent on translations, we can’t really look for Rhyme Scheme, Meter, or stanzaic forms.

So what does it mean to say that the text is written in verse? Well, the essence of poetry is always patterned rhythm. Do you recognize any pattern in this description of Enkidu, the great friend and rival of Gilgamesh?

Gilgamesh abounds in catalogues like this one, many of them much longer. All combine to powerfully emphasize a characterization of actors in the story. These patterns are examples of figurative language:

The same figures we find in Gilgamesh have been used by poets and orators throughout the ages to make an impact on their audiences. Does your pastor excel at preaching? Pay attention to the rhythms of her expression. She almost certainly uses parallel rhythms, anaphora, and catalogues of reiteration to nail down her points.

Shamash and the Code of Hammurabi

Early Sumerian dominance was replaced by other Mesopotamian cultures in an ongoing cycle of dominance. Ubaids. Sumerians. A series of peoples sharing Semitic language roots: Akkadians. Assyrians. Israelites. Despite their ethnic and linguistic differences, all of these peoples used cuneiform tablets and treasured the story of Gilgamesh.

A later version of Gilgamesh was recorded in Babylon,[1] the capital of two periods of imperial power. Hammurabi reined in the 1st Babylonian dynasty, long before the neo-Babylonian empire that conquered the Israelite kingdom of Judah in 605 BCE (relevant Hebrew scriptures: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Lamentations and more).

Hammurabi’s glory is commemorated in a basalt stele (or stela), a monument that affirms the king’s authority by portraying him in supplication before Shamash, a  Babylonian god (see the detail). Steles were often set up by powerful rulers to affirm their authority, to delineate a realm’s boundaries of a realm, or to commemorate military triumph. But this one has a remarkable feature.

Stele of Hammurabi (c 1792-1750 BCE)	Detail: Hammurabi and Shamash.	Detail: sample text.

Mythic art generally provides guidance to behavior proper to members of a culture. Hammurabi’s stele pioneers a new level of explicit regulation of behavior. Below the image, one of the world’s first legal codes is inscribed in the basalt. The code prescribes behavior and specifies penalties for transgressions. Remarkably, a large proportion of the rules and regulations instruct farmers in proper maintenance of the irrigation canals that were crucial for Mesopotamian survival and prosperity.

[1] Babylon: today, the city of Hillel in Iraq.

Vital Questions:

So, what have we learned from our quick glance at Gilgamesh and Hammurabi? For one thing, we see that, in ancient art, visual and narrative art are closely intertwined. That linkage sets up our course interests in visual and literary art: prose and poetry.

Context

We know a great deal more about the context of the ancient Fertile Crescent than we did about Ice Age artists. Mesopotamian people throve by growing crops in the rich soil of the Tigris and Euphrates flood plain. Their abundance led to the opportunities of trade and the storage of surplus. To manage both, they developed the cuneiform system of writing on clay tablets. This accounting technology quickly evolved into literary recordings of their myths.

Content

Our encounter with Gilgamesh engaged two closely related arts concepts:

• Myth: a connected web of narratives and art that illuminate origins, shape beliefs, map the world, and guide members of the culture in proper values and behavior
• Epic: an extended narrative that celebrates heroic deeds exemplifying cultural values

As we will see next week, there is much to be said about narrative structure and heroes’ journeys. For now, we’ll notice two main dimensions of the Gilgamesh cultural myth:

• The communal ideal: Gilgamesh as the personification of civic achievement and the mediator between the people and the patron god, Inanna/Ishtar
• The spiritual journey: the epic’s probing of the human problem of mortality and the mysterious human inwardness that yearns to transcend life & death and connect with forces of creation

Form

We have noted that, like most ancient epics, Gilgamesh is composed in verse rhythms that draw on core figures of speech:

• Anaphora: a figurative scheme that repeats the same word or phrase at the beginning of sentences or clauses
• Figures of speech—Scheme: language which departs from conventional rhythms and patterns for maximum rhetorical effect
• Parallelism: a figurative scheme which arranges phrases, clauses or sentences with the same syntactic or thematic forms:
• Personification: a trope in which an idea, value, group or situation is represented in art as a person: e.g. Gilgamesh representing the community of Uruk

We noted that these patterns and figures are found in literature and oratory throughout the world. We will be meeting with them again!