Literature Articles

Articles

• A comparison of the roles of the hero and the seductress in the Tain Bo Cuailgne and the Iliad

  This paper attempts to redefine the role of the “hero” in ancient Western epic poetry, focusing specifically on the Iliad of Homer and the Irish epic the Tain Bo Cuailgne, by focusing on the maintenance of a hierarchy of loyalties. Similarly, this paper demonstrates the need to expand...

• A Study on the End of The Universe in The Light of Ancient Egyptian Texts

  The subject of this thesis is a theme that has not been fully studied until today and that has long been thought to be overlooked by the ancient Egyptians in a negative way. The aim of this thesis is then to look carefully into the texts dealing with this theme to reveal how exactly the ancient Egyptians...

• Roman Interpretations of the Amazons through Literature and Art

  Modern historians and classicists have studied the ancient Greeks’ use of Amazon mythology extensively and exhaustively. Their analysis of the Amazon in literature and artwork has contributed to a better understanding of Greek society, culture, and the mindset of those ancient people. Next...

• The Value of Family in Ancient Greek Literature

  When looking at Ancient Greek literature, one can see the importance family plays in Greek culture. We see this displayed in the Greek works Medea by Euripides and Antigone by Sophocles. Throughout these literary works we see that family is a strong and important cultural value which remains undiminished...

• Scribes in ancient Mesopotamia

  Literacy was not widespread in Mesopotamia. Scribes, nearly always men, had to undergo training, and having successfully completed a curriculum became entitled to call themselves dubsar, which means 'scribe'. They became members of a privileged élite who, like scribes in ancient Egypt...

• The Eternal Life of Gilgamesh

  The Epic of Gilgamesh was originally a Sumerian poem, later translated into Akkadian, and first written down some 700 – 1000 years after the reign of the historical king in the cuneiform script. The poem was known originally as Sha-naqba-imru (He Who Saw The Deep) or, alternately, Shutur-eli-sham (Surpassing...

• The Epic of Gilgamesh in Prose (Standard Akkadian Version)

  The standard version was discovered by Austen Henry Layard in the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh in 1849. It was written in standard Babylonian, a dialect of Akkadian that was only used for literary purposes. This version was compiled by Sin-liqe-unninni sometime between 1300 and 1000 BC out of older legends.The...

• The Papyrus Lansing: Be A Scribe…Or Else!

  The Papyrus Lansing is an ancient Egyptian document that dates to the reign of the Pharaoh Senusret III (also known as Sesostris III, and, arguably, the legendary Sesostris written of by Herodotus) the 5th ruler of the 12th Dynasty of Egypt from 1878-1839 BCE. It was written by the scribe Nebmare-nakht...

• Sappho of Lesbos: Ancient Greek Poetess

  Sappho was born in 612 B.C. on the island of Lesbos, located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. Born into an aristocratic family, Sappho was fortunate to be exposed to the public life. As an upper class Greek, she would have been well read and exposed to the "finer things" in Greek life, such as banquets, dances...