Reflections on medievil and ancient texts - Essay Example

On Modern-Day Relevance of “Gilgamesh” (Ancient Text) Understanding what Gilgamesh is like would require sensible engagement of studying world history and literature which have altogether preserved the essence of an epic figure behind the world’s most ancient of civilizations. Basically, Gilgamesh embodies a legend whose emergence is owed to the civilization’s first builders, the Sumerians, who occupied the southern portion of Mesopotamia as farming settlers sometime prior to 4000 B.C.

These inhabitants naturally prospered as if it is the course of nature that sought them after when the Sumerian tribes managed to draw on the generosity of the twin rivers Tigris and Euphrates, enabling them to come up with proper cultivation of the fertile land as well as systematic irrigation even during times of drought. Based on these accounts, it is not so much of a surprise that Gilgamesh, a great ruler in his own way, could lead such people who ought to earn recognition for a nearly remarkable living characterized primarily by their intelligent utilization of vast water sources besides literary inclinations and fascinating inventions of unique writing form, temples, cities, and academic institutions.

Through extensive studies, archeological evidences do indicate that Sumerians possessed rich culture of literary scholars who had written epics, proverbs, poetry, history, and fables from which the prominent details of Gilgamesh is claimed to have concretized into an entity with flesh and form. In the combined endeavor of both the fields of history and literature. Gilgamesh is widely known as the king of Uruk who made possible the founding of the great city wall. Standing in the tangible realms of Mesopotamia, the six-mile wall in its wide presence across civilizations makes no unsolved mystery though Gilgamesh, its acknowledged creator, is assumed a demigod.

Analyzing such perspective with the aid of liberal approach used in current times, I think Gilgamesh may have existed in an ordinary human form or a human character whose interesting traits were more than adequate for a priest-king. For this ground, the Sumerians could have exaggerated more in their reverence and appreciation to the extent of treating Gilgamesh as a mythically constructed figure breathed into life by oral tradition. Accounting sufficiently for the Sumerian’s great city wall, by practical knowledge, we realize the fact that even if there were highly skilled workers who built the structure in all magnificence, it may not be denied that someone with genius potentials had facilitated them in the building process.

Being realistic, however, major instructions must have come from a human being who initiated a revolutionary change or turning point for civilization and by the time Babylonian empire had risen in power, the general love of classic myths at that period transformed such Gilgamesh-man into a sensation that bore close semblances to a god or any metaphysically thought non-human hero. On Modern-Day Relevance of “Beowulf” (Medieval Text) During the medieval period, ancestral heritage and individual honor chiefly determined one’s level of success or status of power and influence.

Apparently, these constitute the essence of the theme in the poem “Beowulf” which explores how every man in the pagan culture is reputed based not only on heroic deeds but more significantly on the line of ancestry with which the individual’s character of heroism is identified. As substantiated in Beowulf’s poetic text, each warrior son with particular courage and abilities is attributed to a father whose similar traits eventually become the standards against which the offspring’s potentials are measured and this extends as well to the judgment given on descendants thereafter.

In the modern contemporary society, the ancient perspective of treating respect and dignity on the basis of valiant roots no longer applies yet it is still evident that recognition of an individual’s strengths highly matters. Nowadays, as in the old barbaric times, people in general engage in a battlefield of stressful hard work in order not just to earn a decent living but even to achieve the quality of life aspired for which is equivalent to the fame the literary heroes of Beowulf sought after.

If each dynamic working man of today’s society is to be likened to the brave warrior of ideal youth in Beowulf, then the cumulative pressures within workplace amount to a monstrous ‘Grendel’ which ought to be overcome for the sake of yielding to the position of power. Nevertheless, while patriarchal settings and the significance of male parents exists in the concept of the medieval poem, the present rather reflects a more flexible condition where parents of either gender bear equal advantage and influence over their children.