Achilles beside Gilgamesh

It is widely recognised that the epics of Homer are closely related to the earlier mythology and literature of the Ancient Near East, above all the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. But how should this influence our response to the meaning and message of either poem? This book responds to this question through an experiment in intertextual reading. It begins by exploring Gilgamesh as a work of literature in its own right, and uses this interpretation as the springboard for a new reading of the Homeric epic, emphasising the movement within the poem - beginning from a world of heroic action and external violence, but shifting inwards to the thoughts and feelings of Achilles as he responds to the certainty that his own death will follow that of his best friend. The book will be of interest both to specialists and to those coming to ancient literature for the first time.

• Offers a new analysis of the ancient Greek epic, with a historically authentic sense of its context in the Ancient Near East
• Provides a fully integrated study of the parallels and contrasts between the visions of the epic past articulated in the Iliad and in the Epic of Gilgamesh
• Accessible to scholars and students coming to the epics for the first time, as well as being of great interest to specialists