What is the most "timeless" story?

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The Eqyptians and Sumerians wrote religious stories in cuneiform and hieroglyphics. Many of the stories are familiar to us today -- the creation of man, the flood, the exploits of heroes. In fact, the whole Avatar Trilogy (that provided the base for 2 games I love to bits) with its whole deal about the tablets of fate, well, that comes from Sumerian mythology -- the story of the theft of the Tablets of Fate is a very ancient Sumerian story. I remember studying it when I took "Ancient Near Eastern Religions" at college.

 

Alexander the Great: No offense, but I doubt that the age of a book has little to do with content.

From what I can tell (a philistine like me pretty much fell asleep a fifth through The Two Towers, and was only able to finish Fellowship... because I saw the movie), The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the epic battle between good and evil, between heroism and darkness, between temptation and virtue. Like many other stories. King Arthur. Ragarnok. The Tale of, er, well, that's the only other one I can think of right now.

If "rite of passage" stories are going to be among the timeless stories, I certainly have a feeling epic battle stories will be somewhere in the top ten as well.

My name is C'Jakob.

[ April 23, 2003, 21:10: Message edited by: C'Jakob ]

 

Uh, C'Jacob, take a peek at the topic here -- we're discussing stories that have been around for a long time. Now, in some senses, we've moved to archetypes, or metastories, but the fact remains -- LOTR was not written until this century. The metastories behind it have been around for aeons, but that particular story does not compare (on the scale of how long a story has been around) with many of the stories mentioned earlier in this thread.

 

You're probably correct, Depaara. In retrospect, I don't think that Lord of the Rings will be very popular a few centuries from now. But I don't know about, say, the Aeneid, the Odessey, or King Arthur either.

Still, I have to wonder if Lord of the Rings were told a millenia or two ago, it would really be a timeless story. I don't think that a "timeless" story will be written in the modern age, perhaps because of the hyper-fast exchange of information and whatnot. And maybe because of a lack of appreciation in storytelling (with computers, who needs oral tradition?).

 

I think LOTR will become one of those timeless stories, don't get me wrong! It's just that, speaking of the story, it isn't as old as, say, the Odyssey. As for King Arthur, or Robin Hood, these stories have held public interest for several centuries! I don't think they'll die out anytime soon.

 

Ahm.. I think that Lord of the Rings (as Star Wars -> Skywalker, Waterwalker, Starwalker (Yes, I am an agnostic, so what ?)) is mainly based on or heavily inspired by old stories which are actually around since mankind sat by a fire and started to tell stories. That's my guess, knowing that Tolkien was teaching and has learned old languages, which of course implies reading old and older stories.

And those stories are everywhere nearly the same, like Robin Hood. He's also know as William Tell.

 

That's true enough, but I was going along with the idea that if Lord of the Rings were written longer ago, it wouldn't have that much precedent. Still some, of course, but certainly not as much as Tolkein did in his day.

 

The Hindu Epic Ramayana has been around for quite some time.

The Chinese story "The Journey West" with Wu Kong is based on a historical figure from the 7th century.

I think it is slightly innacurate to state that "The Bible" as a whole is a single story, there are doubtless stories from it which are timeless. Not every Bible has even the same books as Canon, so perhaps it would be best to mention specific stories...just a thought.

The 1001 Nights. Some of these stories are far older than one might imagine.

Australian Dreamtime stories are also very ancient. Admittedly they are not written, but they must be old. I would be curious to learn more about other oral stories from the Americas or Africa, since I am not familiar with them.

Humans tend to be pretty good at story telling, especially those stories that deal with social issues.

 

Grunt... grunt...ugh...grunt.

the first story ever that is still told today

 

Instead of the Bible, why not the Torah? The Bible consists of the new and old testaments and the new testament is pretty recent. The Koran (Spelling?) is also pretty old.

Do you mean timeless, or oldest? Timeless seems to me like the Lord Of The Rings or a Classic like A Tale Of Two Cities.

 

Indeed, there is a difference between oldest and timeless. There are many old tales still around today, many of which have been already mentioned here. Gilgamesh And Enkidu is widely regarded to be one of the oldest tales around, but it's not exactly timeless. Timeless means for all time, as in still as relevant today (or even moreso) as it was centuries ago.
So on that note I'd have to nominate the Torah, Koran and Bible for most timeless work. For most timeless by one author I nominate the works of Shakespeare.

 

I don't get it why the Bible even made it on the list. The bible consists mostly out of stories which where floating around the mediterranean and the middle-east long before they were written in the bible. Which makes the Bible a patchwork of loosley connected stories which contradict themselves the whole time and are total boring to read. Without the advertisment "hey, it's from god", that book would be long forgotten and catching dust in some library. And rightly so, the greeks have written down the same stories in much more skillfull way.

 

The Bible is on this "list" as it contains teachings, suggestions and philosophies that are incredibly relevant to people today even after 2 millennia.
You might not agree with all or any of the Bible (there's a lot I take issue with), but it's impact and importance to millions of people certainly qualify it as timeless.

 

The Iliad and the Odyssey are considered the first important stories in Western Literature. It is thought that the Iliad was told first, and could be by the same poet as the Odyssey but no one can say for certain. They are both of Bronze Age Greece, around 1200 BC, but Homer, if he is the original poet (which he probably wasn't) told these stories much later, thought around 800 BC. One rpresents, of course, life as a war, the other, life as a journey. Take your choice. I think the Odyssey is the better work because it is so life affirming.

Vergil wrote the Aeneid during the height the Roman Empire, 1st Century AD, which was much later than Homer, and is considered a foundation story of Rome. It is filled with Roman ideals, cleverly superimposed over Trojan culture (if there ever was such a thing).

Beowulf, is considered to be the first important poem in the English language and is probably from the 9th century. The story is really not English but Old Norse, written by an Anglo-Saxon who is also thought to be a Christian. At its center is the "heroic ideal," which is one of the centerpieces of fantasy/adventure.

Tolkien was strongly influenced by its power. He was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, and was a philologist, someone who studies old languages and their history. The importance of words can't be understated in his work. For instance, a hobbit is very much like a rabbit, in that not only are they similar in language, but hobbits and rabbits both live in holes.

Also, Tolkien's dragon, Smaug, is very much like the one that appears in Beowulf. There is a really interesting take on this story written by John Gardner, Grendel, which tells the story from the monster's point of view.

I think that Beowulf's connection to Tolkien would make it the most important story to those who are into fantasy/adventure, since most of the genre owes much of itself to Tolkien and Old Norse literature.

 

If I remember right, the ancient greek teacher in school had told us that Odyssey was written first.

 

BOC -- I will check my source. If you can, let me know which source your instructor used, as I may have his edition in my library.

Edit: Check the _Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, sixth ed., 1992; pp. 93-98. The Norton is pretty much standard.

[ May 11, 2003, 03:39: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

The never-ending story of course. .

 

http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/whb37.htm

(That's a German link, couldn't find any other. Maybe because of lacking English vocabulary on my part)

I think one of the most prevailing theories nowaday is, considering the Iliad and the Odyssey, that both were sung and learned by hard by the singer. Both did not exist in written form at first, for centuries.

Next to the learned hard version, there also was an "improvised" singing, which was a high and complicated artform too.

1. Learning it by hard is no problem, because in earlier times, people had to develop skills in learning things by hard, which are now not usefull anymore, except for "learning-by-hard" competitions. Where still unbelievable achievements are reached.

2. This means for the two pieces. They are the work of a lot of people and which existed first, is nearly impossible to know. In any case "Homer" had an important part in the change from the "by-hard" to the "written" form.

 

Chandos
Unfortunately I can't because 16 years have passed since I was taught the Homer's poems and my memory is not anymore what it was used to be. What I can do is to ask a professor in my job, who is an expert in these things. The guy is 90 years old and two weeks ago he recited parts from Iliad by memory !

Edit: Well, finaly I asked him and he told me that the most common opinion among the researchers is that Iliad was written first. Although there is a debate about this. While Odyssey seems to be written by a mature man (in terms of content) and Iliad seems to be written by a man of younger age, the language used in Odyssey is considered to be "immature" compared with the language of Iliad.

[ May 15, 2003, 16:04: Message edited by: BOC ]