Gilgamesh in the arts and popular culture

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Gilgamesh in popular culture
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A modern statue of Gilgamesh stands at the University of Sydney.[1]

The Epic of Gilgamesh has directly inspired many manifestations of literature, art, music, and popular culture throughout history. It was extremely influential during the Bronze Age and Iron Age in the Middle East, but gradually fell into obscurity during classical antiquity. The story was rediscovered in the 19th century, and began to regain popular recognition and influence in the 20th century.

Overview

Ancient reception

According to historian Wolfgang Röllig, the Epic of Gilgamesh addressed many basic concerns and important themes of human culture such as creation, death, friendship, enmity, pride, arrogance, humility, and failure. These subjects have remained of importance to humans throughout time, explaining the story's impact and popularity.

Illiad, and Odyssey.[5]

Even though the Epic of Gilgamesh was rather popular, it remained tied to Cuneiform and was seemingly never translated into languages using other writing systems such as Ancient Greek or Old Aramaic. Accordingly, the decline of Cuneiform coincided with the disappearance of Gilgamesh from public consciousness.[6] The story was eventually rediscovered by archaeologists in the 19th century, and many of its elements and sub-stories gradually became popular subjects in arts and popular culture.[7]

Reception after rediscovery

Ishtar with Gilgamesh, painting by Polish artist Kazimierz Sichulski

It was only during and after the

magnum opus River Without Shores (1949–1950), the middle section of the trilogy centers around a composer whose twenty-year-long homoerotic relationship with a friend mirrors that of Gilgamesh with Enkidu[12] and whose masterpiece turns out to be a symphony about Gilgamesh.[12]

The Quest of Gilgamesh, a 1953 radio play by Douglas Geoffrey Bridson, helped popularize the epic in Britain.[12] In the United States, Charles Olson praised the epic in his poems and essays[12] and Gregory Corso believed that it contained ancient virtues capable of curing what he viewed as modern moral degeneracy.[12] The 1966 postfigurative novel Gilgamesch by Guido Bachmann became a classic of German "queer literature"[12] and set a decades-long international literary trend of portraying Gilgamesh and Enkidu as homosexual lovers.[12] This trend proved so popular that the Epic of Gilgamesh itself is included in The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature (1998) as a major early work of that genre.[12] In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist literary critics analyzed the Epic of Gilgamesh as showing evidence for a transition from the original matriarchy of all humanity to modern patriarchy.[12] As the Green Movement expanded in Europe, Gilgamesh's story began to be seen through an environmentalist lens,[12] with Enkidu's death symbolizing man's separation from nature.[12]

Gilgamesh mural in Galway, photographed in 2020

The Great American Novel (1973) by Philip Roth features a character named "Gil Gamesh",[16] who is the star pitcher of a fictional 1930s baseball team called the "Patriot League".[16] Believing that he can never lose, Gil Gamesh throws a violent temper tantrum when an umpire goes against him[16] and he is subsequently banished from baseball.[16] He flees to the Soviet Union, where he is trained as a spy against the United States.[16] Gil Gamesh reappears late in the novel as one of Joseph Stalin's spies[16] and gives what American literary historian David Damrosch calls "an eerily casual description of his interrogation training in Soviet Russia."[16] In 2000, a modern statue of Gilgamesh by the Assyrian sculptor Lewis Batros was unveiled at the University of Sydney in Australia.[1]

Starting in the late twentieth century, the Epic of Gilgamesh began to be read again in Iraq.[14] Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, had a lifelong fascination with Gilgamesh.[17] Hussein's first novel Zabibah and the King (2000) is an allegory for the Gulf War set in ancient Assyria that blends elements of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the One Thousand and One Nights.[18] Like Gilgamesh, the king at the beginning of the novel is a brutal tyrant who misuses his power and oppresses his people,[19] but, through the aid of a commoner woman named Zabibah, he grows into a more just ruler.[20] When the United States pressured Hussein to step down in February 2003, Hussein gave a speech to a group of his generals posing the idea in a positive light by comparing himself to the epic hero.[14]

Literature

Classical music

Pop music

Theatre

Scene of the German theatre play Gilgamesh by René Clemencic und Kristine Tornquist, performed in 2015

Film

Television

  • Gilgamesh is referenced in both the prologue and epilogue of the 1964 episode of
    Demon With a Glass Hand".[29]
  • Gilgamesh appears in an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, revealed to have turned his back on the gods after his family died while he was fighting their war. In his despair, he began worshipping the demon Dahak in a bid to have the gods destroyed as revenge. He manages to kill Hercules’ best friend Iolaus as a sacrifice for the demon, before Hercules kills Gilgamesh. He is a half-brother to another character in the series named Nebula.
  • "Darmok", episode 2 of season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, is a self-referential adaptation of Gilgamesh in a science fiction setting. Jean-Luc Picard references the epic directly as he attempts to communicate with a member of an alien species whose language consists entirely of allegory which references mythological and historical people and events from his culture.[30]
  • Gilgamesh anime
    , directed by Masahiko Murata.
  • The Epic is seen in
    Kur
    .
  • Gilgamesh is one of the Servants in the Holy Grail War of the
    Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works anime, in all three of which, he serves as a final antagonist who has an obsession with Saber; he merely desires to possess Saber and the Holy Grail (for the sake of it being a treasure) in the former two while he wants to destroy the world using the Holy Grail to rule over those who survive the cataclysm in the latter. He also appears in Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia as the king of Uruk
    and a main character of the story.
  • A child version of Gilgamesh appears in the anime series Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya
  • Gilgamesh is comically referenced in Futurama season 7 episode 18 titled "The Inhuman Torch". Bender is compared to Gilgamesh after saving the earth from an evil personified flame.[31]
  • In Batman: The Animated Series, reference is made to Project Gilgamesh, from which the character Bane is born. (Season 3, Episode 1)
  • Gilgamesh is referenced during a street play based on his story, in the Indian television series Bharat Ek Khoj episode 2, based on The Indus Valley Civilisation.
  • The Smiths must rescue Steve after he is kidnapped and taken to the North Pole, which is revealed to be the frozen over remains of the
    American Dad
     (season 12, episode 7)
  • In
    The Tower of Druaga
     anime, the king of Babylim and the first person to climb the tower was named Gilgamesh.

Comics

Video games

  • In Namco's action role-playing game Tower of Druaga, Gilgamesh is known as Gil and is the main hero who must ascend the floors of Druaga's tower to rescue Ki. The game spawned the Babylonian Castle Saga franchise.
  • The pre-designed game packaged with Electronic Arts' Adventure Construction Set, Rivers of Light, follows the Epic of Gilgamesh.
  • In Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, the eighth level was named as "Courtyards of Gilgamesh".[34]
  • The
    Gilgamesh
    and his "faithful sidekick" Enkidu. There are actually several variants of Gilgamesh in Final Fantasy, as the series has no shared in-universe continuity, though there is usually some reference to him being a fierce warrior who collects swords and many iterations of him have as many as six arms.
  • Gilgamesh is the leader of the Sumerian civilization in the
    Beyond the Sword expansion pack, and Civilization VI
    .
  • In Namco's video game Tales of Phantasia, one of Cress Albaine's titles is Gilgamesh, which can be obtained finding particular objects.
  • In Capcom's video game Devil May Cry 4 Gilgamesh is a pair of boots and gauntlets that are worn and used by second protagonist Dante, possibly in reference to a similar weapon featured in earlier games in the series, named after Beowulf, another epic poem.
  • In the Sir-Tech game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, players construct their adventure party at Gilgamesh's Tavern.
  • In the
    Fate/Extra CCC" and Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star
    as a playable character.
    • In the mobile game Fate/Grand Order, Gilgamesh appears as a summonable servant in three different variants: as a child, in his Fate/Stay Night form prior to meeting Enkidu, and a wiser version from his time as king after the conclusion of The Epic. He is one of the main protagonists in the game's Seventh Singularity, which takes place in Ancient Mesopotamia, the arcade version of the game also has a babylonian singularity, in which Gilgamesh is cloned and Nebuchadnezzar II is summoned into his clone's body by the Beast of 666.
    • Gilgamesh also appears as a Ruler-class servant in Fate/Samurai Remnant.
  • In the Japanese collectible card game Shadowverse, Gilgamesh is an uncommon playable card.
  • In the WonderPlanet inc. mobile-game Crash Fever, Gilgamesh is an obtainable unit in an ultimate wizard quest.
  • In
    Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017), a sword originated from Mesopotamia known as "Humbaba's Fang" was carved by Gilgamesh from the tooth of Humbaba.[35]
  • In Hades (2020), the fourth aspect of the Twin Fists of Malphon is the Aspect of Gilgamesh.[36]
  • In Smite, the second 2021 Babylonian god is Gilgamesh, who battles Tiamat in the story.

Children's literature

References

  1. ^ a b Stone 2012.
  2. ^ Röllig 2009, p. 7.
  3. ^ Röllig 2009, pp. 9–10.
  4. ^ Röllig 2009, pp. 10, 28.
  5. ^ Röllig 2009, pp. 28–29.
  6. ^ Röllig 2009, pp. 11–12.
  7. ^ Röllig 2009, pp. 29–30.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Theodore Ziolkowski (1 Nov 2011). "Gilgamesh: An Epic Obsession", Berfrois.
  9. ^ Röllig 2009, pp. 7–8.
  10. ISBN 978-0-8014-5035-8
  11. ^ Ziolkowski 2012, p. xii.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Ziolkowski 2011.
  13. ^ Ziolkowski 2012, pp. xii–xiii.
  14. ^ a b c Damrosch 2006, p. 254.
  15. ^ Damrosch 2006, pp. 254–255.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Damrosch 2006, p. 255.
  17. ^ Damrosch 2006, pp. 254–257.
  18. ^ Damrosch 2006, p. 257.
  19. ^ Damrosch 2006, pp. 259–260.
  20. ^ Damrosch 2006, p. 260.
  21. ISBN 978-1-5087-7439-6
    .
  22. ISBN 978-1-5087-7439-6
    .
  23. ^ Röllig 2009, p. 30.
  24. ^ "Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane – 'Lost in the Cedar Wood' review: Folkies look on the bright side". NME. 10 May 2021.
  25. ISBN 978-1501329760
    .
  26. ^ Tetsuo, O. T. A. (2005). On Princess Mononoke. The Review of international studies, 17, 7-21.
  27. ^ "Tras el éxito de 'Fortnite', Epic Games ahora apuesta por 'Gilgamesh', una película animada con Unreal Engine" [After the success of 'Fortnite', Epic Games now bets on 'Gilgamesh', an animated movie with Unreal Engine] (in Spanish). 23 January 2021. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  28. ^ "Where Is Gilgamesh?". IMDB. 2 September 2023.
  29. ISBN 9780814208922
    – via Google Books.
  30. ^ Pryke, Louise M. (2019). Gilgamesh. Taylor & Francis.
  31. ^ ""Futurama" the Inhuman Torch (TV Episode 2013) - IMDb". IMDb.
  32. ^ Gilgamesh at his castle Archived 21 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine in Abominable Charles Cristopher.
  33. ^ "Archer & Armstrong & Gilgamesh: Fred Van Lente on the Zero Issue". comicbook.com. 6 September 2017.
  34. ^ "Steam Community :: Guide :: The Second Encounter - All Levels".
  35. ^ "15 Best Weapons in Assassin's Creed Origins, Ranked". thegamer.com. 27 March 2020.
  36. ^ Savage, Eric (11 October 2020). "How To Unlock The Aspect Of Gilgamesh in Hades". Screen Rant. Retrieved 10 July 2021.

Bibliography

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