Genre

There is also the problem of determining what kind ofliterature is ‘‘epic’’. The best scribes of antiquity were multilingual and were fond of categorizing and classifying objects known to them, from animals to the zodiac. They certainly could have crafted a theoretical language to discuss literature or developed labels by which to discriminate among compositions. The mystery is that they hardly bothered. (Contrast Black 1998: 25 and Parkinson 2002: 32-6, 108-12.) Each ANE culture attached a rudimentary roster of labels to some of its compositions. Yet for us these rubrics (often given as subscriptions or in colophons) are maddeningly imprecise or ubiquitous, drawing haphazard scholarly allegiance. No ANE composition was assigned a label that is anything like the terminology we use. This lack of classifying categories is matched by the absence of any argued theory ofliterature, its goals, and its many channels of interpretation.

Our own classifiers, however, have not been as reluctant to fix markers. Long ago, the works of Homer acquired the term ‘‘epic’’ (earlier: Epick, Epos); but only in the recent past began the accumulation of labels (many imported from distinct traditions) for narratives with heroic or historical characters. To begin with, there came to be subdivisions within ‘‘epic’’ (Assyriologists distinguish between ‘‘royal’’ and ‘‘historical’’ epic, featuring the heroics (however imagined) of actual kings and those dealing with all other heroes respectively; see Westenholz 1997: 16-24). But other labels are also used, among them ‘‘geste’’ (unfolding exploits, often assonantic), ‘‘legend’’ (fabulous story with historiciz-ing touches), ‘‘saga’’ (family histories, occasionally heroic, often in multiple episodes), ‘‘folktale’’ (traditional, anonymous, and placeless narrative), and ‘‘romance’’ (not unlike legend, but accentuating intimate goals). Myths, said to rehearse cosmogonic themes involving supernatural characters, were set apart from epics, which were thought to enhance solidarity through paradigmatic human deeds. While myths were mined to explain theology and worldviews, epics delivered on ancient mores and informed on national aspirations. In fact, for no decent reason, when the Romantic Age was at its ripest, mythopoeism (the crafting of myths) was linked to folk speculation, while the production of epics was associated with elite, “nationalistic” drives. Yet, narratologically speaking, ANE myths and epics hardly differ, in form or structure, and even less so in the character-roles of protagonists. Both were regarded as equally historical (or not) and both equally challenge our capacity to disbelief. In some myths gods die and in some epics heroes are translated to heaven. It is not surprising to find Mesopotamian no less than Egyptian scribes as equally dedicated to praising the kingly acts of gods as the supernatural acts of heroes (Beaulieu 1993). Moreover, they shuttled at will motifs, themes, even globs of material between what we label myths and epics.

This unwillingness on the part of the ancients to concretize boundaries has spilled into our own scholarship. We now find “maximalists,’’ for whom an epic must have breadth, a noble vision, and national or ethnic symbolism, and “minimalists,” for whom the genre applies whenever two characters are tracked beyond a thousand words. Some specialists label a composition a myth and others an epic (Pongratz-Leisten 2001). Others, including such sophisticated literary analysts as Wasserman (2003) simply treat both as matched vehicles for fantasy. Still, discrimination between the two categories seems to be field specific: Egyptologists hardly recognize the epic in their literature; if at all, comparativists (like me) force it on them. Sumerologists apply the label on a distinct set of compositions (see list below), but not without protest (Michalowski 1992: 243-5; Edzard 1994). Specialists in Akkadian, Ugaritic, and to a lesser extant Hittite, readily assign compositions to one or the other category; but they are also likely to find ‘‘epic qualities’’ in both categories. Thus, Assyriologists do not find it anomalous to speak of the ‘‘Creation Epic’ or the ‘‘Erra Epic” for compositions that are manifestly mythical. Biblicists who locate (fragments of) myths in the Bible blame Canaanite influence, denying Yahwists a capacity to forge their own fantasies. Likewise, those that find epic elements in scripture are inspired by analogies with Ugaritic narratives, thus prompting the suggestion that the saga of the patriarchs (and matriarchs) developed from a pre-biblical oral epic churned out during the Late Bronze Age. (For a range of opinions, see Conroy 1980; Talmon 1981; and Hendel 1987b.)