Kenneth Rexroth says that Gilgamesh is the first psychological novel. Read what he says here: http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/cr/1.htm. If the link doesn’t work, please check under Other Links. How does the story of Gilgamesh reveal the psychology of the characters, especially Gilgamesh and Enkidu? Pay special attention to the journey to fight Humbaba (Tablet II, ll. 115 to Tablet V) How do the characters relate to each other (for example, who leads and who follows? Who learns from whom?) Does their relationship change? When and how? Be sure to quote relevant passages to support what you have to say about the characters. Quote Rexroth if appropriate. Your job is to make a psychological portrait of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, if you will.
Check in GALILEO, especially Academic Search Complete, for print articles in electronic databases. Do a web search, too, for websites that may be helpful. If you use another source, remember to use a parenthetical citation (author and/or title and page number, if available) to show where you used the source, and give Works Cited at the end.
Remember that you are writing about poetry, so quote in lines with slashes between lines: “’There dwells in the forest the fierce monster Humbaba, / You and I shall kill him / And wipe out something evil from the land (II, 134-136)’ says Gilgamesh.” Longer quotations (4 lines or more) should be indented all together and typed in so that they appear just as they do on the page. If you need a refresher on citation style, the library has an index of its online style guides. If you know one of the other style guides and are comfortable with it, fine. Otherwise, please use the MLA guide.
