Kent H. Dixon
Retired professor of English and
Creative Writing, Wittenberg University
Published author of fiction, non-fiction and works in translation
Kevin H. Dixon
Artist, cartoonist and published author of cover art and an autobiographical series “And Then There Was Rock.”
Two Classes (Zoom Only!)
1:30 – 3:00 March 17, 24
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest work of great literature, inscribed on clay tablets more than a thousand years before Homer. It’s the Ur epic—the first Road Trip, Hero’s Adventure, bromance and homecoming all in one. It’s quoted in the Bible and it shapes Homer and provides him with tropes and characters, and since Homer, then on to Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Spenser, Milton, and epic epic epic down to us—whether a Joycean Ulysses or a Coppola Apocalypse Now. It’s not just in our blood, it’s in our marrow: it makes our blood. In Lifelong Learning’s The Epic of Gilgamesh: Cuneiform Tablets Meet Graphic Novel, the father/son team of Kent and Kevin Dixon will conduct a tour of how it all came about—the history of the epic, a short course in cuneiform, the trials of translation and the tribulations of rendering that as a comic book.
March 17: Kent Dixon, with a little help from his friend, will introduce us to all things Gilgamesh—the story itself, the story of its discovery, the decipherment of cuneiform, the challenges of translating it, and the abundance of translations, renditions and uses thereof today.
March 24: Kevin Dixon will discuss the rationale for and the collaborative process of retelling the world’s oldest story through one of the world’s newest artforms. “From cuneiform to comix,” as he says, with minimal interruptions from his father.
Questions are encouraged, and good background material can be found in any of the Introductions by translators—Benjamin Foster, Andrew George, Stephanie Dalley, John Gardner (the novelist), Stephen Mitchell, Maureen Kovacs, to name a few of the best.
A good, uncluttered-by-scholarship readthrough can be found at The Epic of Gilgamesh, Translated by Kent H. Dixon, Illustrated by Kevin H. Dixon (Seven Stories Press, 2018).
Questions in advance to: kdixon@wittenberg.edu and ultrakevin@hotmail.com
Photo essays on GILGAMESH at: kenthdixon.com