The Epic of Gilgamesh

As the source material for this guide is a work in translation, much of the form and meter have been sacrificed for readability in English. In its original form, "Gilgamesh" is an epic poem: a long narrative poem with roots in oral tradition and which describes the actions of a culturally important hero. As Odysseus is a Greek hero in Homer’s "The Odyssey" and Aeneas is a Trojan-born founder of Rome in Virgil’s "The Aeneid", Gilgamesh is a hero of ancient Mesopotamia. While "The Epic of Gilgamesh" is the oldest written story known to exist, it was likely orally told for generations before it was ever transcribed as individual poems and then in the Akkadian epic poem version that has survived to the present.

"Gilgamesh" is recorded on 11 tablets. These 11 “books” allow the hero’s life to be told in episodic moments easy for an oral storyteller to remember and recount. Each book narrates pivotal moments in the friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, followed by Gilgamesh’s encounters and exploits as he searches for immortality. These separate vignettes also combine to form the arc of Gilgamesh’s transformation from powerful despot to companion, warrior, and heartbroken hero on a journey to defeat death itself.