The Shape of Stories

Narrative Structures in Cuneiform Literature
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-90-04-53714-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 54, 356 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 237 mm, Gewicht: 661 g

Reihe: Cuneiform Monographs

How were narratives composed in the ancient Near East? What patterns and principles, constraints and considerations guided the shaping of cuneiform stories? The study of narrative structures has emerged as a promising approach to the textual heritage of the cuneiform world. Engaging with practically any ancient text—whether literary, historical, or religious—requires some understanding of the narrative forms that shaped their content. This volume gives researchers the tools to better understand those form, illustrating each approach to narrative analysis with a case study from the cultures of the ancient Near East: Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Konstantopoulos, Gina

Helle, Sophus

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures and Tables

Notes on Contributors

1 Introduction: Narratology and Cuneiform Studies

Sophus Helle and Gina Konstantopoulos

Part 1 Stitching a Story

2 Recurrent Structures in the Sumerian Gilgamesh Cycle

Alhena Gadotti

3 Transition and Cohesion in the Tale of Zalpa

Robert Marineau

4 Unreliable Foreshadowing in Divine Predictions

Louise Pryke

Part 2 Medium and Emotion

5 Tablets as Narrative Episodes in Babylonian Poetry

Sophus Helle

6 The Dynamics of Repetition in Akkadian Epics

Selena Wisnom

7 Charting Emotional Shapes in Cuneiform Literature

Gina Konstantopoulos

8 Representing Time in the Kiutu Incantation-Prayers

Beatrice Baragli

Part 3 The Shape of the Past

9 Historical Explanation in the Babylonian Chronicles

Ben Dewar

10 The “Pre-History” of the Sumerian King List and its Narrative Residue

Gösta Gabriel

11 Blank Space: Akkadian Metapoetics in the Bel-etir Narrative

Claudio Sansone

Part 4 Excavating Narratives

12 In Search of Dumuzi: An Introduction to Hylistic Narratology

Annette Zgoll, Bénédicte Cuperly, and Annika Cöster-Gilbert

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sophus Helle, Ph.D. (2020), Aarhus University, is a postdoctoral researcher in Assyriology at Freie Universität Berlin. His translation of Gilgamesh and the poems of Enheduana, the world’s first author, are published with Yale University Press.

Gina Konstantopoulos, Ph.D. (2015), University of Michigan, is Assistant Professor of Assyriology and Cuneiform Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her monograph on the Sebettu-demons is forthcoming with Brill.