Proverbs and Gnōmai in the Epic of Gilgamesh

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_chapter_19361
dc.contributor.author	Ballesteros Bernardo
dc.title	Proverbs and Gnōmai in the Epic of Gilgamesh
dc.type	Chapter
dc.language.iso	en
dc.description.abstract	This essay discusses proverbial expressions and wisdom sayings in the Gilgamesh tradition. It contends that certain critical strategies developed for ancient Greek poetry can be applied to Babylonian epic, particularly the analysis of poetic gnōmai and narrative irony. I begin by isolating the type of expression at issue, building on a flexibility in scholarly definitions of proverbs, gnōmai and sayings that goes back to antiquity (§2). The core of the paper (§3-5) charts and comments on wisdom sayings in the first-millennium Standard Babylonian (SB) Gilgamesh with reference to the earlier poetic tradition. After some concluding remarks (§6), I include an indication of potential comparative avenues involving Homeric epic (§7).
dc.relation.ispartof	Antiquity Studies
dc.relation.ispartof	Studi orientali
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.issued	2023-11-30
dc.dateAccepted	2024-03-04
dc.dateSubmitted	2023-11-24
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-776-0/proverbs-and-gnomai-in-the-epic-of-gilgamesh/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/978-88-6969-776-0/013
dc.identifier.issn	2610-8828
dc.identifier.eissn	2610-9344
dc.identifier.isbn	978-88-6969-777-7
dc.identifier.eisbn	978-88-6969-776-0
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
item.fulltext	with fulltext
item.grantfulltext	open
dc.peer-review	yes

Chapter
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Proverbs and Gnōmai in the Epic of Gilgamesh

Bernardo Ballesteros University of Oxford, UK

abstract

This essay discusses proverbial expressions and wisdom sayings in the Gilgamesh tradition. It contends that certain critical strategies developed for ancient Greek poetry can be applied to Babylonian epic, particularly the analysis of poetic gnōmai and narrative irony. I begin by isolating the type of expression at issue, building on a flexibility in scholarly definitions of proverbs, gnōmai and sayings that goes back to antiquity (§2). The core of the paper (§3-5) charts and comments on wisdom sayings in the first-millennium Standard Babylonian (SB) Gilgamesh with reference to the earlier poetic tradition. After some concluding remarks (§6), I include an indication of potential comparative avenues involving Homeric epic (§7).

Published

Nov. 30, 2023

Accepted

March 4, 2024

Submitted

Nov. 24, 2023

Language

ISBN (PRINT)

978-88-6969-777-7

ISBN (EBOOK)

978-88-6969-776-0

permalink: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-776-0/013

Copyright: © 2023 Bernardo Ballesteros. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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