Representative Beginnings (1941–1958)
Representative Beginnings (1941–1958)
Since the mid-twentieth century, the Gilgamesh story has been treated in a variety of aesthetic forms: fiction, poetry, drama, opera, film, painting, and beyond. These treatments, however varied they may be, use one of four basic modes of modernization. First, and most straightforward, is translation, ranging from highly literal to free. Second, are fictionalizing and dramatic revisions of the theme: that is, works that retell the story in its original period and setting while imposing upon it a viewpoint and values characteristic of the writer's own age. The third mode may be called postfigurative: that is, works set in the writer's own time but whose action clearly follows a pattern identified with a mythic model. Finally, there is a catch-all category that might be called broadly thematic or motivic analogues: that is, works sometimes known as “pseudonyms” or imitatio that seek to establish a loose thematic connection with the source work. This chapter examines works from all four categories or modes.
Keywords: modernization, translation, thematization, pseudonyms, imitatio, Epic of Gilgamesh, epic poem, epic poetry
Cornell Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
