THE BABYLONIAN CREATION EPIC (ENUMA ELISH) *through the literary crticism: Psychoanalytical*

The Babylonian Creation Epic (Enuma Elish) is an Akkadian poem that originated as early as the eighteenth century B.C.E. This accent story telling poem has combined several other earlier cosmogonies from Sumerian, Old Akkadin, and West Semitic cultures that told of a warrior god’s struggle against a primeval female sea monster named Tiamat. This text obviously demonstrates a very clear meaning as to why it was written and why so many people back then believed in this myth/story. It gave the people who created this poem meaning to life and information of how the world and earth came about (even though we see this as just a myth or story, the people of this time period actually believed this poem to have true meaning behind it). Therefore, The Babylonian Creation Epic (Enuma Elish) is not only a mythical poem coming from the early eighteenth century but it is also a way to help us understand the people of that time period and have a better view on their beliefs.

Looking at this poem through the Psychoanalytical literary criticism point of view is not hard at all, and in fact it is even more fascinating than just reading this poem through our simple minded point of view. It is awesome to read this point and try to understand how and why the author’s created this poem. To us it seems as though the many people who all contributed to creating this poem did so for the simple fact that they wanted to express their beliefs. The authors of this poem seemed to create this story to tell how they believed the world and earth came about. “The author gives pride of place to the Babylon god, Marduk, whose temple in Babylon becomes the religious and political center of the world. The story traces the world’s creation: from the two primary personifications of ocean (fresh and salt, Apsu and Tiamat) out of which emerge the earliest gods – who fight against the fresh ocean, the father-figure Apsu, when he wants to destroy them and restore primeval silence. Then Marduk, the creator God, kills Tiamat and from her body fashions the world; he establishes the first city, Babylon, where he has his cosmic home in the Esagila temple. Marduk’s father, Ea, creates the first humans out of the blood of Qingu, Tiamat’s consort and general, and these are to serve the God’s many needs”. From this quote that pretty much summarizes what the whole poem is about, we can tell that the authors wanted to make their beliefs known as to how and why the gods they believed in created the world, earth, and the humans. The humans were created by the Babylonian God for the simple fact that they were there to serve God’s needs. The authors also included in the poem how and why the heavens were created. The heavens that the Babylon god, Marduk, created were referred to as “the netherworld…a mythic space for human existence after death”. To conclude, looking at this poem through the Psychoanalytical literary criticism point of view does in fact help to understand how and why the author wrote this fine piece of work, and it is obvious that this poem was created with a lot of detailed description and history of the author’s beliefs.

Foster, R. Benjamin. “The Babylonian Creation Epic (Enuma Elish).” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3^rd ed. Vol. A. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 34-39. Print.