Royal literary identity under the Sargonids and the Epic of Gilgameš
The high density of intertexts lifted from the epic of Gilgameš in the corpus of Sargonid royal narrative texts is unprecedented in Assyrian literary history Following Kenneth Gergen’s works on narrativity and identity building, this paper understands these programmatic innovations as deliberate att...
| Published in: | Die Welt des Orients |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
[2020]
|
| In: |
Die Welt des Orients
|
| RelBib Classification: | KBL Near East and North Africa TC Pre-Christian history ; Ancient Near East ZC Politics in general |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The high density of intertexts lifted from the epic of Gilgameš in the corpus of Sargonid royal narrative texts is unprecedented in Assyrian literary history Following Kenneth Gergen’s works on narrativity and identity building, this paper understands these programmatic innovations as deliberate attempts by the Sargonids to reformulate royal identity By employing a concise methodology for intertext analysis based on the works of Gérard Genette, this paper shows how two prominent Sargonid texts, the king’s report “Sargon’s Eight Campaign” (TCL 3) and the inscription Esh 1, have used allusion to the Gilgameš epic to inscribe the figure of the Assyrian king into a literary world similar that of the legendary king of Uruk This process peaks in a literary emulation of Assyrian kingship with the kingship of Gilgameš under Esarhaddon The paper closes with a short survey on other Gilgameš-related elements in Sargonid Assyria and some concluding thoughts on the “expansion of the narrative borders” of Assyrian royal identity. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2196-9019 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Die Welt des Orients
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.13109/wdor.2020.50.2.318 |