To put it into perspective, The Epic of Gilgamesh is a centuries year old text, and yet, it is still common amongst high school and college curricula. Why is that? It's because, as I've said, the epic contains poignantly familiar human emotions that people can relate to. It's almost comforting that people thousands of years ago dealt with the same fundamental issues that we do. There are two points I want to touch on as to why we should teach The Epic of Gilgamesh. The first is our relation to history and culture and the second is theme that is prevalent throughout the text.
I want to discuss, briefly, the importance of The Epic of Gilgamesh in a modern perspective. Look at the Middle East today. It is riddled with issues that have been around for thousands of years. The struggle of power is evident. While taking a world literature class, my professor guided us to a video on YouTube from the "Gilgamesh Project." It is put together by Kinan Azmeh and Kevork Mourad. You can find the video at the following link: Gilgamesh Project. The description of their project, found on their website (Kinan Azmeh Website) is as follows:
"The current unrest in the seat of the world's oldest civilization inspired us to explore the most ancient epic we have in writing today. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a lush story, rich in meaning, in romance, and in humor. We have chosen to explore this epic through the art forms of music and painting, using them in tandem as vehicles for story telling. With original composition on the clarinet, (with the use of Max/Msp software as a compositional extension,) inspiring and working off the visual artist's projected illustration, the world's oldest known epic will be brought to life in the present: through new musical forms and means, and through a new form of visual art exploring the permanence of lines on paper in the impermanence of projection."
If you're at all interesting in this topic (which I would hope you are if you're reading my blog), I highly recommend watching the video of the Gilgamesh Project. It's enlightening and thoughtful. It puts a modern perspective on the epic I've been writing about for a week. Leave comments if you like it! Let me know what you think.
The second part of the importance of teaching The Epic of Gilgamesh is the human connection to the themes of friendship, love, loss, and reconciling with the inevitability of death. The epic does open up the world of ancient people to students with gods such as Ishtar and Shamash, but the human characters are familiar. A life lived without a friend is a life not lived at all. Students, especially in high school, can relate to the importance of friendship; it's how they thrive.
A teachable moment is when Enkidu insults Ishtar. Students have success and failure in their lives. It is important to teach them about karma (not in religious terms, obviously). You will fail and your true character shines through with how you compose yourself after a failure. You will also have success. Ishtar is a metaphor for how one should react to success. Students can easily relate to this with extracurricular activities, grades, etc.
Many kids have gone through the hardship of losing someone, or even something, that they love. Gilgamesh's reaction to Enkidu's death is so raw that students will empathize. He asks questions we all ask, Why did my friend have to die? Will death also greet me? Students, and Gilgamesh, find out that no one can escape death. No matter one's religious affiliation or beliefs, every person will die. Gilgamesh is the personification of how to deal with death and dying. The Epic of Gilgamesh shows students that they must live each day to the fullest (no matter how cheesy that sounds), because we all die.
Hopefully, after this week, it's made you think about why a text written so long ago is actually important to our students living in the 21st century. I hope you consider what I've said, perhaps use some of the strategies I've given. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think!
Tomorrow starts The Iliad, which has a lot of similarities to The Epic of Gilgamesh, which will provide for some interesting commentary. The schedule for this upcoming week looks like this:
6/10: History of Homer and The Iliad
6/11: Books I-VI
6/12: Books VII-XII
6/13: Books XIII-XVIII
6/14: Books XIX-XXIV
6/15: DAY OFF (I think a day of rest is needed)
6/16: Final Post (similar to today's post)
Get some shut eye so we can dive into Homer tomorrow! Thanks for reading this week!
Cassy
No comments:
Post a Comment