...A Hero of Epic Proportions A true hero does not fear death itself, but will risk everything for what he believes to be right, moral and just. Epic heroes are defined as a person who has superhuman qualities and embodies the values of a society. Epic heroes possess a strong love for their community, fearless of death, and they are loyal to an individual or a cause. The epic poem Beowulf, written by Burton Raffel, depicts the life of Beowulf, the most heroic person during Anglo-Saxon times. Beowulf is fearful of no monster and seems to conquer every obstacle as if he were immortal. He possess many of the characteristics that make up an epic hero including: courage,physical strength, loyalty,confidence, and wisdom. During Anglo-Saxon times, tales were often told about epic heroes who put their own lives in danger for the greater good. These stories about fearless and honorable warriors provided the common people with a sense of security and provided lessons to young men that they should display honor in every act. Beowulf willingly put himself in danger when he accepted the challenge of fighting the monster, Grendel. He did this only to help the Geats and out of loyalty to the Danes. His actions defined his life and are recounted throughout the epic poem. Beowulf was never afraid of death. Before every battle he would explain his death wishes and request that his assets be delivered to his people. "And if death does take me, send the hammered mail of my armor to Hilgar"...
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...What makes a poem epic? By mere definition, something epic is stated to be significant/impactful ancient history, passed down for generations. Such poems that completely fulfill this conception are, “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” by N. K Sandars and “Homer, The Odyssey” by Robert Fitzgerald. Both can be found primarily written in the form of ancient characters and even inscribed on old tablets! Both extensive, drawn out poems of godlike heroes people can easily look up to with extremely high regard. Such long drawn out poems are rare, for most poems we come across in our lives are very brief. A prolonged poem that can actually tell a grand story as good as a novel can, and is legendary in time can only be described as an epic poem. In addition, awesome themes can be pointed out that give poems that much...
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...Title: The Two Ancient Titan Warriors Samurai and knights, going man to man, stabbing and slashing, ripping and tearing. Though this battle sounds of epic proportions, it never took place. But, what if this event actually did take place? More importantly though, what are samurai and knights? Samurai were fierce, agile warriors from Feudal Japan. Knights, on the contrary, are bulky, strong warriors from Medieval Europe. Though these two protectors lived far away from each other, they were both created around the same time. However, if these two titans were to engage in a duel, the samurai would win because of his great armor, physical training, and mental training. Samurai are superior to knights because of their specialized armor. Some pieces...
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...Most of the time, theme must be inferred from evidence in the text. 7. A theme is an idea that can be expressed in a complete sentence. 8. A theme is always a generalization. That means it is stated in such a way that it applies to everyone. 9. A theme from Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain might be a boy and a slave’s quest for freedom. 10. A(n) universal theme reflects a condition or experience that is fundamental to being human; all people can understand and relate to it. What I need to know about archetypes: 1. archetype are patterns or models that appear repeatedly in literature and oral traditions across cultures and time periods. 2. The epic hero is an archetype, representing the bravest and strongest elements of humanity. 3. Even though Gilgamesh preceded Beowulf by thousands of years, both represent archetypical epic heroes in that they both choose their own journey. 4. Gilgamesh and Beowulf are both motivated by the desire for glory. 5. Both...
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...When reading Gilgamesh, it is not uncommon for many to relate the tale's protagonist to John Campbell's theory on the twelve steps of a Hero's journey, which characterizes the typical progression of most epic stories. However, I make the claim that, as per Campbell's theory, it is not Gilgamesh himself who is the hero of the tale. Rather, Gilgamesh and his ally Enkindu combine to form the single hero of the story, with Enkindu actually meeting most of Campbell's criteria. Together, both characters symbolize one hero who embodies mankind's yearning to “incarnate unearthly covenants” (Campbell, 1968, p. 3), consistent with Campbell's views on mythology. The tale begins with an exposition describing Gilgamesh and Enkindu's daily life. According the first step in Campbell's theory, a Hero's journey must begin in an ordinary world. Enkindu fits this description perfectly. As far as a natural living is concerned, every aspect of Enkindu's life is ordinary; he lives completely off the land, his whole body was “shaggy with hair”, and he satisfies his thirst with “mere water” (Anonymous, n.d.). Gilgamesh, in contrast, does not have a conventional life. Not only is he royalty, he is “supreme over other kings”, he is the offspring of deities, and he is described as being “awesome to perfection” (Anonymous, n.d.). It is clear that the story begins with two starkly different lives, with Enkidu truly fitting Campbell's primary criteria as a Hero. Indeed, when the plot begins, Enkindu fulfills...
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...Sunjata have many similarities within being an epic character. First, the two stories share the fundamental aspects, intrinsic upon epics. Both tales are told in a poetic format. In addition, the two tales both involve a hero who embarks on some sort of journey. For example, after witnessing the death of his good friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh has trouble coming to terms with his own mortality. In turn, he leaves Uruk hoping to find the secret to eternal life. This is comparable to Sunjata's obstacles in his quest to become king. Sunjata had to come to terms with being a lame child unable to walk properly. Furthermore, Sunjata was forced to travel to foreign kingdoms in exile while he waited for the appropriate time to regain control over his kingdom as prophesied. Both characters face their journey immediately after a tragic death; Gilgamesh witnesses his best friend Enkidu die of illness and Sunjata discovers his mother passed away prior to fighting the Sosso. Moreover, Gilgamesh and Enkido's battle with Humbaba is paralleled with Sunjata's large fight against the Sosso leader Sumaworo. Both these illustrate the similarities in the hero confronting and defeating a great enemy while navigating through treacherous obstacles along the way. Also, by the end of the tales Gilgamesh and Sunjata proved both to themselves and their to their constituents that they were worthy of leading their people. Although Gilgamesh and Sunjata are both popular epics with many similarities, they also differ...
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...Mrs. Anderson Honors English IV July 31, 2011 The Epic of Gilgamesh A man who wrestled giants, killed heavenly bulls, and even killed a herd of lions still was only man and never a god. Gilgamesh was a classic and may be one of the first epic heroes. He had many of the qualities that fit that role. On the other hand Enkidu fit more of an antihero than an epic one. The culture of the story, from what the book explains, took place at around the time of biblical times and A.D. Also there are many religious influences in the story that even intertwine with stories from the bible. You can tell that these religious comparisons came into the story because it was an oral tradition. Gilgamesh was a valiant hero who cared for his people and his companions. The story of Gilgamesh was a tremendous discovery for ancient literature. Gilgamesh was your typical epic hero. He was stronger than any man and the world. He was even two thirds god and one third man. Gilgamesh cared for his people and loved his best friend and they both never left each other’s side. Gilgamesh during his life knew no obstacles that he could not overcome. In the end he died, but he was able to fulfill his quest by finding the Larsen 2 flower that granted eternal life, still to lose it to a snake. An epic hero can’t live forever and is still only man. Enkidu was not your classic antihero, but when in comparison to Gilgamesh, he is not the epic hero. Enkidu was a fearful man and did not want to...
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...Formative Assessment 1 (Generic Transformations 2008 paper) Q1B) The Rape of the Lock, written by Pope in response to a feud between two friends about the theft of a lock of hair, is revolutionary in its evolution of the comic satire genre into the field of epic poetry. Pope, an avid student of the Greek epics (he produced his own translations of some that provided much of his income during his life), takes the basic skeleton of an epic: its structure, critical content and even linguistic points; and crafts around the skeleton a poem of wit and comedy that is at its core epic, but also uses this very epic backbone to undermine its tales own importance and to satirise the content that has been moulded around the form. This creation from Pope marks the offshoot of the epic genre, transforming it into mock epic, an independent genre that bears many of the traits of its forebearer in a new light. The transformations to the epic that Pope undertakes in the Rape of the Lock to satiric effect can be broadly split into transformations of heroic content and transformations of heroic language. The former can be clearly observed here: Pope takes a staple of epic writing, heroic weaponry, and twists its use to his satirical needs. The weapon itself is given, through the use of a similar description, equal place with great weapons like Agamemnon's sceptre, whose lineage was used to reinforce Agamemnon's dominance and power in the Iliad, being forged by Hephaestus and owned by the Gods...
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...Aylin Sipahi CMLT C110 Final Essay for Epic of Gilgamesh February 19, 2013 The Epic of Gilgamesh serves as a great looking glass into a long lost culture in which most artifacts are lost. The story centers on Gilgamesh, a ruthless king who is two thirds god and one third man. As king, he does not meet his potentials of leadership as he is often self-centered and sometimes depicted as inhumane. When his dear friend Enkidu dies, he sets off to find immortality. He eventually fails, but during his journey, he came to terms with his mortality and became a more compassionate person. Even though the main characters are men, the women play small but vital roles along his journey. The women in this epic reveal that they are solely responsible for the civilization of Gilgamesh and Enkidu by means of dream interpretation, sex, and motherly instincts, because the men of this epic do not have the ability to do them on their own. As king, Gilgamesh does things of his own accord and with his own judgment. He terrifies his city with his ruthless behavior, and even upsets the gods. He takes away sons from families, and has his way with newly wedded brides on their honeymoon before the grooms. As Gilgamesh sees women as merely sex objects, it’s difficult to imagine that when he needs direction he goes to his mother, Ninsun “who is well-beloved and wise (page 66).” It is interesting to see that Gilgamesh sees every other woman as a sex object, except his mother. Some theories to support...
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...Qualities of an Epic Story in The Notebook What is an epic? An epic, by definition, is the telling of an epic hero’s story through the vast journey and sacrifices he makes. The Notebook would be considered an epic for many reasons. Some may disagree and say it’s just a love story that contains no characteristics, and no proof of being an epic. But in this paper the characteristics of an epic will be explored through facts and examples from the text and from today’s present life and culture. The epic hero, Noah Hamilton in Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook states, “I am no one special, just a common man with common thoughts. I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me. And my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect, I've succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived (The Notebook).” Some examples of the characteristics in The Notebook that proves this is an epic would include vast settings, the story begins in medias res, the characters have epic digressions and that the hero embodies the values of the culture. Because of how the story starts, media res would be considered the first characteristic of an epic that can be noticed in The Notebook. Our story begins at a nursing home in the south where Allie is being looked after due to her dementia. The nurse is in her room, attempting to have Allie come out and go outside for a little while until a mysterious man shows up. Now, we don’t know who this man is that has just entered her room, and we’re not...
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...It is true what they say that true friendship and love, can definitely change something for the better. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” is about the king of Uruk, who was extremely wise, highly respected, he knew things other people wouldn't know, as well as being an all-powerful, extremely strong, and very beautiful. However, he was a a cruel tyrant, who happened to rape women he’d find extremely attracted to in spite of the fact that some of these women were wives of his noblemen, or warriors. Many of the people of Uruk lived under the oppression of Gilgamesh, until the gods gathered information about Gilgamesh’s unmerciful ways. They decided to form a man, just as powerfully great as Gilgamesh, and his name was Enkidu. Enkidu was initially placed into the wild, living with wild animals from around the land. He lives peacefully, until a hunter discovers him and send a prostitute into the wild to convert him into a ‘civilized man’. Enkidu wounds up sleeping with the woman, and he no longer considers himself wild, but if not more human. Enkidu learns about the troubles of Gilgamesh and his kingdom and decides to challenge; even though, they started off roughly, to the greatest surprise, Enkidu and Gilgamesh end up being the greatest and bestest friends. Later on in the book, Ekidu dies of punishment, for challenging one of the gods and defeating it along with Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is extremely heart-broken and grieves greatly for his friend’s loss. Gilgamesh then sets off into the...
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...victory. Following the Restoration, however, having been publicly on the side of the Parliamentarians during the war, he was in danger of prosecution. He was in fact imprisoned for a short period but was eventually granted a full pardon. By this time his eyesight had already begun to fail him and by 1652 he became completely blind and could continue writing only with the help of secretaries. This makes the completion of his greatest works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, in these later years, even more extraordinary. In his final years he was cared for by his daughters, to whom he dedicated his works. Commentary John Milton was undoubtedly the greatest poet of the 17th century and with Paradise Lost he achieved his goal of writing an epic poem to the standards of Homer and Virgil. Yet he was also one of the most controversial figures in English literature. He was anti-Royalist and participated in the English Revolution but he was not a lover of the common...
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...The Archetype of Death Death is an inevitable and inescapable fact of human life, which is the greatest lesson Gilgamesh learns in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is bitter that only the gods can live forever and says as much when Enkidu warns him away from their fight with Humbaba. Life is short, the two warriors tell each other on their way to the deadly confrontation in the Cedar Forest, and the only thing that lasts is fame. After killing the Bull of Heaven, Enkidu is awakened from a chilling dream that foreshadows his death. In the dream, the gods were angry with him and Gilgamesh, so they met to decide their fate. Enkidu’s dream about the underworld anticipates the journey upon which the heartbroken Gilgamesh will soon embark, “the dream has shown that misery comes at last to the healthy man, the end of life is sorrow” (93). Shamash, the sun god, consoles Enkidu by reminding him how rich his life has been. The comfort the sun god offers Enkidu is indeed humanistic. The god tells him that love, glory, and the pleasures of a cultivated life are important, as are being loved while alive and mourned when dead. This consolation offers a strange kind of comfort, since he is essentially saying that the recompense for losing the life he cherished is the life he cherished. The dream proves true when Enkidu is cursed with an inglorious, painful death. Enkidu finally resigns himself to his fate, and as a result, Gilgamesh is terrified by the thought of his own death. Gilgamesh...
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...WHAT IS NOVEL? A Novel is prose narrative of considerable length and some complexity that deals imaginatively (fictional) with human experiences (near to life) through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Previously it was known as fictional narrative or narrative prose. ( A Narrative opens “in media res”. This means it opens usually with the hero at his lowest point “in the middle of things”, earlier portions of the story appear later as flashbacks..) Main characterstics of novels are theme, plot or setting, structure, action or events in a sequence, strong characterization and expressive language. The genre of extended prose fiction or narrative fictional prose i.e. novel is rooted in the tradition of medieval "romances" or the heroic romance in prose. The term ‘roman or romance’ linked fictions back to the histories that had appeared in the Romance language of 11th and 12th-century southern France. The typical Arthurian romance became a fashion in the late 12th century. The unexpected and peculiar adventures surprised the audience in romances like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1380).The romance had become a stable generic term by the beginning of the 13th century, as in the Roman de la Rose (c. 1230), famous today in English through Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century translation. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (1380–87) is a late example of this European fashion. Prose narrators wrote narrative patterns as employed...
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...The movie O Brother, Where Art Thou clearly is a modern representation of Homer’s The Odyssey. There are multiple people and scenes in the movie that are similar to those in The Odyssey. Not only are there obvious similarities but also minor ones that not everyone may catch. Throughout this paper, you will believe the fact that this movie resembles the myth in plenty of ways. To point out the obvious, Homer’s ‘Odysseus is represented by Ulysseus. They both let their pride get in front of them. Also, the way their relationship with their crew is close to exact. Both crews question their leader for some decisions they make get them into trouble. Odysseus and Ulysseus outsmart people plenty of times. Specific times were when Odysseus tricked the Cyclopes into thinking his name was “No Name”, and Ulysseus tricks his ‘crew’ into believing they are going to search for a treasure when really he just wants to get his wife back. Like I just stated, Ulysseus went on his journey to stop his wife, Penny, from marrying a suitor. In resemblance, Odysseus has to make it home to his wife, Penelope, to save her from marrying one of the many suitors that are living in his home, waiting for her to wed one of them. When Odysseus returns to his homeland, his son doesn’t recognize him right away, same as Ulysseus’ daughters deny it’s him because they believe he was dead. As you can see, there are plenty of obvious similarities, but there are just as many non-obvious similarities. When Odysseus...
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