Gilgamesh/Achilles/David

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course introduces students to the heroic traditions of three cultures of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world through each culture’s greatest hero: Mesopotamia’s Gilgamesh, Greece’s Achilles, and Israel’s King David. The story of each of these figures centers on a deep relationship with another warrior, whose tragic death leads the hero to a crisis revealing truths about the human condition. We will examine how each culture uses the story of its hero to consider life’s most important questions, including love, empathy, mortality, and humans’ fraught relationship with the divine. The course will involve close readings of the Gilgamesh Epic, the Iliad, and the biblical books of 1-2 Samuel, along with supplementary texts to help elucidate the heroic worldview out of which they came. We will consider the texts from both a literary and historical perspective, seeking to understand the origins of these stories, the claims they made on their societies, and their potential impact on our own.