TLRH | Interruptions in Babylonian Poetry: Are They There, and What do They Tell Us?

Tuesday, 17 November 2020, 4 – 5pm A talk by Prof. Martin Worthington (TCD) as part of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies Research Seminar Series in association with Trinity Long Room Hub. The study of Babylonian poetry as poetry is still in its infancy — largely because so much energy has to go into textual reconstruction. But we now have a number of reasonably well preserved narrative poems, and one question which never seems to have been asked of them is whether characters finish their speeches to the end, or interrupt each other. In the absence of a Babylonian phrase for 'interrupt', this ends up being a matter of judgment, and conceivably one which elicited different views from different audiences. This paper will offer some examples of where interruptions can be envisaged, and what the implications are for characterisation. Our speaker would be delighted to get references to interruption in other literary traditions! Dr Martin Worthington, who specialises in the Ancient Middle East, joined Trinity in August 2020. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Studies. His most recent book is Ea's Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story (Routledge, 2019), and during lockdown he is racking his brains over 'Sargon's Riddle'. Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/