Epic Poetry: Did you mean...?

Gilgamesh is a semi-mythical king of Uruk, an ancient city of Mesopotamia, and is best known as the star of the first epic poem ever written, the Epic of Gilgamesh, where he searches for immortality after the death of his friend Enkidu. Even...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the most popular works of literature in the present day and has influenced countless numbers of readers but, for the greater part of its history, it was lost. The Assyrian Empire fell to a coalition of Babylonians...

The Old Norse word saga means 'story', 'tale' or 'history' and normally refers specifically to the epic prose narratives written mainly in Iceland between the 12th- and 15th centuries CE, covering the country's history as well as Scandinavia's...

The Mahabharata is an Ancient Indian Epic and is the longest epic poem in the world. It was believed to have been composed as early as the 4th c. BCE or even earlier by the sage Vyasa (who is also a character in the story). As a whole, the...

The cuneiform inscription on this clay tablet (VAT 12890) narrates part of the Epic of Gilgamesh (written c. 2150 - 1400 BCE). The obverse of this tablet relates the second dream of Gilgamesh on the journey to the Forest of Cedar, and part...

This is the newly discovered Tablet II of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The upper surface is the obverse. The image was intentionally shot focusing on the center because the tablet has not been published yet. The cuneiform text has been transliterated...

This is the reverse of the newly discovered Tablet II of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The cuneiform text (on the obverse) has been transliterated by Professor Farouk Al-Rawi and an article will be published by him soon. The cuneiform inscription...

Noted translator and poet Coleman Barks, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the UCSB College of Creative Studies, presents the poetry of 13th century Afghan-born Sufi mystic and poet, Jelaluddin Rumi. Bark's intense and artful translations...

Callimachus of Cyrene (l. c. 310-c. 240 BCE) was a poet and scholar associated with the Library of Alexandria and best known for his Pinakes ("Tablets"), a bibliographic catalog of Greek literature, his poetry, and his literary aesthetic...

Chretien de Troyes (l. c. 1130-1190 CE) was the greatest romantic poet of his era, regarded today as the Father of Arthurian Romance (along with Geoffrey of Monmouth) and also Father of the Novel owing to his narrative form. He was most likely...