Beowulf and Gilgamesh are two of the oldest surviving works of literature in the world. Both are considered EPIC poems, or epos, which is a term used to describe a long narrative poem that tells the story of a hero's journey. Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon EPIC poem written in Old English, while Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian EPIC poem written in Akkadian. Both works have been studied for centuries and are still widely read today.