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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 2 page look at the differences in conception of the underworld between these three works. The paper notes that Dante's is the only one of the three works in which the Underworld is clearly punitive; in the Odyssey, it was simply sad, and in Gilgamesh, empty. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
2 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Undervis.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
with a full report, theories on this subject have been purely speculative. However, it is interesting to look at views of the Underworld as drawn from the literature of three
different cultures, and compare and contrast them. Homer, in the Odyssey, has his hero Odysseus go to visit the Underworld after the accidental death of his young sailor Elpenor. After
sacrificing a black lamb and an ewe, the dead seem to swell up around Odysseus; it does not seem so much that he has visited Hades as he has become
aware of the coexistence of Hades and the world of the living, all on the same plane. He weeps as he sees his mother, for he had not known she
was dead; and Teiresias, the famous seer, warns him of the future. When he has concluded his business, the dead are dispersed and return to their cloak of invisibility. The
anonymous author of Gilgamesh regards the Underworld quite differently. The story tells of the bosom friendship of two men, Gilgamesh and Enkidu; after Enkidus death, Gilgamesh is bereft, confused, and
terrified. He sets off in search of the one mortal who has ever defeated death -- Utnapishtim, the lone survivor of the great flood -- to find out how he
can defeat death too. His first leg of the journey involves descending into a tunnel-like cave composed of nine terrifying leagues of total darkness (similar to a rebirthing experience).
When Gilgamesh at last finds himself at last in the presence of the ancient Utnapishtim, however, it is clear to him that Utnapishtim has no "secret" that will confer immortality
after all; it was a one-time gift of the gods, and not something available to mankind at large. Gilgamesh sleeps six days and seven nights in Utnapishtims abode, but then
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