‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent...
10
Candidate Number: T08342 ‘In narrating a descent to the Underworld, a poet sets out to tell us something of urgent importance about the world above.’ Assess this statement through a comparison between The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh Fear of, or at least apprehension toward, death is an inevitable aspect of the human condition. Even in the ancient epics, poets attempted to resolve the feelings of unease with regard to death. Yet their aims are more complicated than simply offering comfort and psychological resolution, the poets of The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh sought to give their audiences a better understanding of their own lives by means of reference to the Underworld. In illustrating the Underworld and narrating a descent to it, both poets draw inspiration from the culture and beliefs of themselves and their audience, whilst utilising an extensive degree of artistic license in order to inform the audience of how the Underworld corresponds to and is intrinsically linked with the world above. In Odysseus’ quest to return home, he performs a number of rites in order to converse with the long-dead oracle, Tiresias. Once he has gained the knowledge that he needs from Tiresias, he goes on to converse with a number of close loved ones (such as his mother and his comrades) and observe other well-known figures of Greek mythology. Gilgamesh’s experience in the uncanonical 12th tablet is less extensive, with him conversing only with his old friend, Enkidu, who has been brought up momentarily after becoming trapped in the Underworld. Their interactions with the Underworld certainly differ greatly, yet this is to be expected of two texts separated by up to a thousand years and vast cultural difference. In noting the differences and, perhaps more importantly, the similarities between the two representations of the Underworld presented by The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh, it is possible to ascertain the extent to which the poets have set out to use the descent to the Underworld as a means of communicating a message of their own world to their audiences, and to ascertain the nature of this message. The descriptions of the Underworld itself are geographically rather similar in The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Underworld does not have the binary (or ternary, if purgatory is included) separation of Christian representations such as that of Dante in his Divine Comedy . In fact, their Underworlds are primarily purgatorial. The majority of its inhabitants suffer not from grotesque and painful torture, nor are they rewarded handsomely, yet instead they experience a distinct privation. Homer has Teiresias explain that it lacks ‘the blazing sun’, that it is a ‘cold, 1
-
Upload
morgan-young -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
0
Transcript of ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent...
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 1/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 2/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 3/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 4/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 5/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 6/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 7/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 8/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 9/10
8/18/2019 ‘In Narrating a Descent to the Underworld, A Poet Sets Out to Tell Us Something of Urgent Importance About the …
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/in-narrating-a-descent-to-the-underworld-a-poet-sets-out-to-tell-us-something 10/10
