Contemporary Approaches to Mesopotamian Literature

How to Tell a Story
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-69756-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 56, 314 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 599 g

Reihe: Cuneiform Monographs

This volume lays theoretical and methodological groundwork for the analysis of Mesopotamian literature. A comprehensive first chapter by the editors explores critical contemporary issues in Sumerian and Akkadian narrative analysis, and nine case studies written by an international array of scholars test the responsiveness of Sumerian and Akkadian narratives to diverse approaches drawn from literary studies and theories of fiction. Included are intertextual and transtextual analyses, studies of narrative structure and focalization, and treatments of character and characterization. Works considered include the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic and many other Sumerian and Akkadian narratives of gods, heroes, kings, and monsters.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shehata, Dahlia

Sonik, Karen

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Altorientalische Geschichte & Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Literaturen des Alten Orients

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Tables

Abbreviations

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: How to Tell a Story in Ancient Mesopotamia

Dahlia Shehata and Karen Sonik

Part 1 Issues, Theories, and Methods

1 Mesopotamian Literature: Theories, Methods, and Issues of Sumerian and Akkadian Narrative Analysis

Karen Sonik and Dahlia Shehata

Part 2 Sumerian Narratives: Narratological Approaches

2 Focalization and “Story Time”: Techniques of Sumerian Narrative

Anne Löhnert

3 There and Back Again: Journeying and Narrative Structure in the Sumerian Lugalbanda Epics

Gina Konstantopoulos

Part 3 Akkadian Gilgamesh Narratives: Contextual and Intertextual Approaches

4 Gilgamesh and the Forest of Gemstones: Symbolic Value—History of Tradition—Intertextuality

Martin Lang

5 Journey towards Death: The Cedar Forest in the SB Gilgamesh Epic from an Intertextual Perspective

Selena Wisnom

6 Allusion or No Allusion: Commenting on the Interpretations of SB Gilgamesh Epic V1–26 and IX171–194

Gösta Ingvar Gabriel

Part 4 Assyrian Royal Narratives: Contextual and Intertextual Approaches

7 The Good, the Bad, (and the Ugly?): Propaganda and the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic

Stefan Jakob

8 A Methodology for the Transtextual Analysis of Assyrian Royal Narrative Texts

Johannes Bach

9 Making the Invisible Visible: Propaganda, Ideology, and Intertextuality in Assyrian Royal Narrative

Jamie Novotny and Karen Sonik

Part 5 Sumerian and Akkadian Narratives: Novel Approaches

10 Characterization and Identity in Mesopotamian Literature: The Gilgamesh Epic, Enuma elish, and Other Sumerian and Akkadian Narratives

Karen Sonik

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Dahlia Shehata, PhD University of Göttingen, completed her habilitation and is Assistant Professor at the University of Würzburg, where she teaches Sumerian, Akkadian, and Mesopotamian history. Her research explores Mesopotamian languages and culture, with particular emphasis on literature and music history.

Karen Sonik, PhD University of Pennsylvania, is Associate Professor at Auburn University. Her research explores Mesopotamian literature, with an emphasis on the Sumerian and Akkadian Gilgamesh narratives and Enuma elish, as well as the visual arts, aesthetics, and emotions in Mesopotamia.

Contributors are:

Johannes Bach,
Gösta Gabriel,
Stefan Jakob,
Gina Konstantopoulos,
Martin Lang,
Anne Löhnert,
Jamie Novotny,
Dahlia Shehata,
Karen Sonik and Selena Wisnom.