Great literature tells us something about the struggles and concerns of the era in which it is written. It also speaks to us about issues which continue, perhaps indefinitely, to distress mankind. Even a work of pure fantasy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy (to the contrary of Professor Tolkien's denial about the use of allegory), is burdened with the tension between the agricultural and the industrial, the former in its last death throes as twentieth-century Western society became almost wholly industrialized. The great tales of Western civilization, even it's most ancient foundational stories, are no less concerned with the pre-occupations of the cultures from which they spring.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, almost certainly the oldest known story outside those contained in the earliest chapters of the book of Genesis, is fraught with the difficulties experienced in three different relationships: that between civilization and wilderness, that between man and his fellow man, and that between man and god.
Part One: Civilization vs. Wilderness - "Is it not burnt brick and good?"
Part Two: Gilgamesh and Enkidu - A Love Story
Part Three: Ancient Religion - Mortality and Fickle Gods
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