Based on your CLOSE TEXTUAL ANALYSIS of The Epic of Gilgamesh and/or The Trial and Death of Socrates,
answer/consider one of the following prompts:
1) In Apology, Socrates famously asserts that “the unexamined life isn’t worth living for a human being” (55).
How could this very well describe Gilgamesh for much of the epic? Yet what happens at the end of the epic to
change Gilgamesh, and how does he change?
2) Consider the following assertion: for much of his life, Gilgamesh learns death from life, but near the end of
the epic learns life from death, a shift that accompanies his shift from God to human. Explain/explore.
3) Consider the following assertion (from a Sophocles scholar, but applicable to Gilgamesh as well): “We
understand ourselves in our mortal condition only when we have grasped our relation to the interconnected
powers of nature, death, and the gods. But this is tragic knowledge because we can reach and possess it only by
suffering.” Explain and explore through an analysis of Gilgamesh.
4) Socrates asserts that “the unexamined life isn’t worth living for a human being” (55). Based on your close
analysis of both Euthyphro and Apology–what does he truly and deeply mean, and how/why does he contrast
“human” versus “super-human” wisdom as a key element of this assertion?
5)What does it mean to be human and not a God in both The Epic of Gilgamesh and Trial and Death of Socrates?
6) What are the dangers of “super-human” “wisdom” as illustrated in both The Epic of Gilgamesh and Trial and
Death of Socrates?
7) Another famous maxim associated with Socrates is that we must “know thyself” and “hate hubris” (32). This
is not some feel-good hippie sentiment. Socrates urgently believed that ignorance and deficient self-knowledge
led to evil. Based on your analysis of both Trial and Death of Socrates and Gilgamesh—what does he mean? How can
we see this demonstrated by Gilgamesh, Euthyphro, and the citizens of Athens?
Make an overarching argument, then develop this argument via direct, rigorous, and sustained textual
engagement with Gilgamesh and/or Trial and Death of Socrates. In other words, you must work directly with many
key passages, quotes, scenes from the text/s that help you to develop your central argument and subsidiary
points; and you must quote properly from our edition/s of the texts (unless you are working with an alternative
hard copy edition). And see MLA guidelines for how to quote poetry—Gilgamesh is an epic poem, and must be
quoted as such (and maintain any and all original notations and punctuation marks, including all of the weirdness
in Gilgamesh—italics, brackets, ellipses, etc.)